U.S. News releases 30th Annual 2019-20 Best Hospitals Rankings
U.S. News & World Report has released the 2019-20 Best Hospitals rankings with a new and revised 30th edition that the organization says provides a multifaceted assessment on nearly every hospital nationwide.
This year, U.S. News updated the methodology in its 12 data-driven specialty rankings, which cover Cancer, Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Diabetes & Endocrinology, Ear, Nose & Throat, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Gynecology, Nephrology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology & Lung Surgery, and Urology.
"In the three decades since U.S. News began evaluating hospitals, we periodically have revamped our measures to enhance the decision support our rankings and ratings provide to patients," said Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News, in the statement. "This year we revised the methodology to incorporate new measures of patient-centered care and to enhance how we account for differences in hospitals' patient populations. The new model provides a more comprehensive assessment that is useful to patients, families and their medical professionals."
Updates include:
· Two additional patient-centered measures in each specialty: patient experience score and a new outcome measure that examines how often patients go directly home from the hospital rather than transitioning to a nursing home or other institutional care setting.
· An enhanced risk-adjustment model that accounts for differences in patient populations so that hospitals that treat sicker patients are not penalized.
· Harmonization of outcome measurement in the specialty rankings with the U.S. News Procedures & Conditions ratings, which debuted in 2015 to evaluate hospitals in nine common services.
Spanning 25 adult specialties, procedures and conditions, the 2019-20 rankings evaluated nearly every community hospital in America. This year, only 165 hospitals out of more than 4,500 were nationally ranked in one specialty, while 569 were ranked among the Best Regional Hospitals in a state or metro area based on their performance in delivering complex and common care.
For 2019-20, the Mayo Clinic claimed the No. 1 spot on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll. The Honor Roll is a distinction awarded to hospitals ranked in the top 20 for delivering exceptional treatment across multiple areas of care. Massachusetts General Hospital ranked No. 2, followed by Johns Hopkins Hospital at No. 3.
Top 5: Cardiology & Heart Surgery
1. Cleveland Clinic
2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
3. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
4. New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell, N.Y.
5. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
Top 5: Cancer
1. University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston
2. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York
3. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
4. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
5. Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center, Boston
Top 5: Orthopedics
1. Hospital for Special Surgery, New York
2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
3. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
4. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco
5. NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital, New York
