The Best Hospitals in the U.S.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

U.S. News & World Report has released its annual list of the best hospitals in the U.S. for 2010-11. So which hospital received the most points and ranked the highest in this year’s list? Once again, it’s Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, which has held the No. 1 spot for the last 20 years.

Out of nearly 5,000 hospitals reviewed, only 152 made the cut. Each of these hospitals appears in the rankings for at least one of the 16 specialties, ranging from cancer to diabetes to heart surgery.

Scores were based on objective and subjective measures such as death rates, patient safety, and reputation. U.S. News says it publishes the Best Hospitals list each year to help patients who need high-stakes care because of the complexity of their condition.

These 14 hospitals, in order by most points overall, made the “honor roll” list for ranking near the top in at least six of the specialties:

1. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
3. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
4. Cleveland Clinic
5. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
6. New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell
7. University of California, San Francisco Medical Center
8. Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis
9. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
10. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
11. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
12. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle
13. UPMC-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
14. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor

And here are the No. 1 hospitals in each specialty category:

• Cancer: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston
• Diabetes & Endocrinology: Mayo Clinic, Rochester
• Ear, Nose & Throat: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• Gastroenterology: Mayo Clinic, Rochester
• Geriatrics: Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York
• Gynecology: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• Heart & Heart Surgery: Cleveland Clinic
• Kidney Disorders: Mayo Clinic, Rochester
• Neurology & Neurosurgery: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• Ophthalmology: Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami
• Orthopedics: Hospital for Special Surgery, New York
• Psychiatry: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
• Pulmonology: National Jewish Health, Denver
• Rehabilitation: Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
• Rheumatology: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• Urology: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore

To see the entire list and a detailed description of the analysis in the specialties, visit the U.S. News website.

- Courtney Ware, WebMD

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