U.S. News shuffles the deck with 2020 ‘Best Hospitals’ package
Mayo Clinic tops the Best Hospitals Honor Roll in U.S. News & World Report’s latest annual rankings. Not far off the lead are Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins Hospital.
But the honor roll, which recognizes 20 hospitals that excel in numerous care concentrations, is only part of a “Best Hospitals” package the publication has retooled for 2020-21.
New components include tributes to the U.S. News “Hospital Heroes,” nearly 70 healthcare workers who have shone during the COVID crisis.
The Heroes profiles place special emphasis on individuals working at urban and rural hospitals who have “gone above and beyond during this unparalleled time in history,” as put by Ben Harder, the publication’s managing editor and chief of health analysis, in a news release.
Also included in the package are commentaries from hospital leaders, reporting on trends hastened by the pandemic (burnout prevention, telehealth growth) and coverage of persistent health inequities that the pandemic has put in sharp relief.
Additionally, this year U.S. News is debuting quality ratings on a very specific category of medical procedure: transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR).
As for the rankings themselves, the leaders in three high-profile medical specialties are University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (cancer,) Cleveland Clinic (cardiology and heart surgery) and Hospital for Special Surgery (orthopedics).
And here’s the 2020-21 Best Hospitals Honor Roll:
1. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
2. Cleveland Clinic
3. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
4. New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell, New York (tie)
4. UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles (tie)
6. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
8. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco
9. NYU Langone Hospitals, New York, N.Y.
10. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago
11. University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor
12. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
13. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, California
14. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York
15. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia
16. Mayo Clinic-Phoenix
17. Rush University Medical Center, Chicago
18. Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Saint Louis (tie)
18. Keck Medical Center of USC, Los Angeles (tie)
20. Houston Methodist Hospital
U.S. News notes that the data used in this year’s rankings and ratings “come from a period predating the COVID-19 pandemic and were not affected by the pandemic’s impact on hospitals.”
For the full package, click here.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.