U.S. News: Out with overall hospital rankings, in with alphabetically ordered ‘honor rolls’
U.S. News & World Report has posted its annual list of America’s best hospitals. But be warned. If you’re checking to see whether Mayo Clinic occupies the overall top spot for the eighth straight year, you’ll go down looking.
That’s because the publication has jettisoned its overall-performance rankings. In its place is a two-tier recognition package.
One tier comprises two “honor rolls”—one for 22 adult hospitals, the other for 10 children’s. Both list honorees alphabetically, i.e., in no special order.
Institutions that made these general lists did so by a.) scoring high for one or more of various medical specialties and b.) being deemed by U.S. News analysts as “high performing” in one or more of numerous procedures and conditions.
The other tier is a set of lists—best hospitals by specialty, region, and procedures and conditions.
In these subsections, the hospitals are indeed ranked.
Also of note: This year U.S. News is emphasizing that its criteria for inclusion in any list reflect, for the first time, outcomes and performance metrics on outpatient care. Meanwhile the magazine has increased its weighting of objective quality measures while reducing its reliance on opinions from experts.
In addition, the publication’s website presents profiles of honorees, and this material includes “refined health equity measures” such as a new measure of racial disparities in outcomes.
Here are the two lists of overall top performers.
BEST HOSPITALS: U.S. NEWS HONOR ROLL, 2023-2024
- Barnes-Jewish Hospital
- Brigham and Women’s Hospital
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
- Cleveland Clinic
- Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian
- Houston Methodist Hospital
- Johns Hopkins Hospital
- Massachusetts General Hospital
- Mayo Clinic
- Mount Sinai Hospital
- New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell
- North Shore University Hospital at Northwell Health
- Northwestern Medicine-Northwestern Memorial Hospital
- NYU Langone Hospitals
- Rush University Medical Center
- Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital
- UCLA Medical Center
- UC San Diego Health-La Jolla and Hillcrest Hospitals
- UCSF Health-UCSF Medical Center
- University of Michigan Health-Ann Arbor
- UT Southwestern Medical Center
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center
BEST CHILDREN’S HOSPITALS: U.S. NEWS HONOR ROLL, 2023-2024
- Boston Children’s Hospital
- Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
- Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
- Children’s National Hospital (Washington, D.C.)
- Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
- Johns Hopkins Children’s Center (Baltimore)
- Nationwide Children’s Hospital (Columbus, Ohio)
- Rady Children’s Hospital (San Diego)
- Texas Children’s Hospital (Houston)
- UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
U.S. News says that, of the nearly 5,000 hospitals it analyzed and 30,000 physicians it surveyed, only 164 hospitals ranked in at least one of the qualifying specialties.
To view 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.