As a member of the Daughters of Charity Health System, St. Vincent Medical Center is an Acute Care Hospital with specialty surgical services and highest quality ratings throughout Los Angeles. St. Vincent Medical Center, located in downtown Los Angeles, is the first Los Angeles hospital, opened by the Daughters of Charity in 1856 and continuously serving the community ever since. St. Vincent Medical Center is ranked fifth among Best Hospitals in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area for 2011-2012. U.S. News & World Report gave St. Vincent Medical Center's Ear, Nose & Throat a national ranking as among the best 2 percent of programs nationwide and designated the hospital as high-performing in specialty areas of: Orthopaedics, Cancer care, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Nephrology, Pulmonology, Urology, Gynecology, Diabetes & Endocrinology, and Geriatrics. Providing compassionate healthcare and serving the sick poor has been the mission of St. Vincent Medical Center for more than 155 years. Our outreach programs include the Asian Pacific Liver Center, the major Los Angeles-based research and outreach center for people with hepatitis B, the Health Benefits Resource Center, which provides referral services for affordable health insurance, and the Multicultural Health Awareness and Prevention Center, which provides low-cost mammography screening and other preventive health screenings.