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East Central
Brevard • Lake • Orange • Osceola • Seminole • Sumter • Volusia
Education
Florida’s East Central region is packed with academic excellence, starting with two Brevard County high schools named among the nation’s top 200 on U.S. News & World Report’s “Best High Schools 2022”: Westshore Junior/Senior High School in Melbourne (No. 55) and Edgewood Junior/Senior High School in Merritt Island (No. 113).
Among colleges, Orlando-based University of Central Florida ranked among the nation’s “Top 20 Most Innovative Universities” by U.S. News & World Report for the fifth consecutive year.
Also earning recognition:
• Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, ranked No. 1 for online bachelor’s degree programs.
• Rollins College in Winter Park and Stetson University in DeLand, ranked No. 1 and No. 4 respectively among regional universities south by U.S. News & World Report.
• Full Sail University, building a $3-million virtual production studio on its 210-acre campus in Winter Park that will combine live-action footage and computer-rendered graphics in real time — essentially creating a live, virtual studio set.
• Eastern Florida State College in Cocoa planning to invest $87 million — its largest investment ever — in academic buildings, student housing and other improvements on its Cocoa campus, including a STEM building with science classrooms and labs and planetarium.
Health Care
AdventHealth Orlando moved up a notch this year to take the No. 2 position among Florida’s best hospitals with top 40 rankings in six specialties on U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals 2022-23”: diabetes and endocrinology (No. 29); cancer (No. 30); neurology & neurosurgery (No. 31); gastroenterology & GI surgery (No. 41); orthopedics (No. 45); and obstetrics & gynecology (No. 47). Its pediatric hospital — AdventHealth for Children — ranked No. 39 in neonatology.
Elsewhere in the region, Orlando Health’s Orlando Regional Medical Center was ranked No. 8 overall among Florida’s best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, and its children’s hospital — Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children — excelled in five specialties: pediatric diabetes and endocrinology (No. 28); neonatology (No. 34); pediatric orthopedics (No. 35); pediatric neurology and neurosurgery (No. 41) and pediatric urology (No. 49). Also receiving honors: Nemours Children’s Hospital, which ranked No. 40 in pediatric orthopedics and No. 50 in pediatric diabetes and endocrinology.
And in other health news:
AdventHealth Orlando is one of seven sites worldwide chosen by the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative to pilot a study that aims to make early detection of Alzheimer’s disease more accessible. Though there is no cure, early detection of signs and risk factors for Alzheimer’s gives patients time to participate in clinical drug trials and find medications that work for them.
