Dive Brief:
- The Mayo Clinic earned the No. 1 spot for a seventh straight year in U.S. News & World Report's best hospitals ranking published Tuesday. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, NYU Langone Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic followed next, with Johns Hopkins Hospital and UCLA Medical Center tied in fifth place.
- In the specialty rankings, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was named best in cancer, Cleveland Clinic was first in cardiology and heart surgery, and NYU Langone Hospitals led in neurology and neurosurgery.
- U.S. News added three service areas of evaluation this year, for ovarian, prostate and uterine cancer surgeries. The publication also introduced "home time" as an outcome measure in certain ratings, reflecting patients' preference for recovering at home.
Dive Insight:
The influential U.S. News rankings are meant to help guide patients in choosing where they will seek care and are prized as a marketing tool by the hospitals themselves.
More than 4,500 hospitals were evaluated on 15 specialties and 20 procedures and conditions. Of those, 493 were recognized as best regional hospitals based on their strong performance across multiple care areas.
Hospitals were rated on metrics such as survival rates, complication rates, patient experience and level of nursing care. Data from the CMS, American Hospital Association, professional organizations and medical specialists were compiled in the review process.
Outcome and volume measures this year included data from the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, so calculations were adjusted to account for the impact on different hospitals. In specialty areas of care, the top 50 hospitals were ranked, and those not making the list but still in the top 10% of all rated hospitals were designated as "high performing."
Health equity measures were not factored into the rankings, but U.S. News said they are a growing component of its quality reporting program. Hospital profiles on usnews.com will now include assessments of charity care, racial disparities in unplanned readmission and how well low-income patients are represented.
A hospital ranking index focused on social responsibility from the Lown Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, was launched in 2020 to examine how well hospitals serve their communities.