Updated 10:45 a.m.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis were among the elite institutions ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of America’s Best Hospitals, the magazine announced Thursday.
U.S. News named Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins as the best overall hospital in the country.
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In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
The rankings — a clinical affirmation and public-relations jackpot for the winners while a bitter frustration for poor performers — includes 174 medical centers nationwide in 16 specialties. For the first time, the magazine factored in data about patient safety along with reputation, death rate and “care-related factors” such as nursing and patient services.
Its online database will also offer full data for another 1,500 other hospitals, as well as a video series by the creators of the rankings about the process.
Cleveland Clinic, Mayo and Barnes-Jewish (which was ranked together with Washington University) were among 21 hospitals on an “honor roll” recognizing institutions that were at or near the top of at least six categories.
The magazine’s “Top 10” is:
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A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
- Johns Hopkins Hospital
- Mayo Clinic
- Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
- Cleveland Clinic
- Massachusetts General Hospital
- New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell
- University of California, San Francisco Medical Center
- Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
- Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University
- Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Duke University Medical Center (tie)
Mayo was ranked first for diabetes and endocrine disorders; digestive disorders; orthopedics and neurology; and neurosurgery. They were in the top 10 for cancer (4); ear, nose and throat (7); geriatric care (6); gynecology (3); heart & heart surgery (2); kidney disorders (3); psychiatry (7); rehabilitation (5); respiratory disorders (2); rheumatology (4); urology (3).
For the 15th straight year, the Clinic was ranked the best hospital for heart and heart surgery. It was also among the 10 best hospitals for diabetes and endocrine disorders (6); digestive disorders (2); ear, nose & throat (9); geriatric care (10); gynecology (6); kidney disorders (5); neurology and neurosurgery (6); orthopedics (4); respiratory disorders (4); rheumatology (2); and urology (2).
The Clinic was the better than all Ohio hospitals in 14 categories, according to a news release from the health system. “We are honored to be recognized as the top cancer hospital in Ohio,” Dr. Derek Raghavan, chairman of the Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute stated in a release. “It demonstrates our unique ability to provide cancer patients with the best possible outcomes, from the most complex to the most common cases.”
Barnes-Jewish was among the 10 best in four categories: kidney disease (8); neurology and neurosurgery (8); respiratory disorders (9); and ear, nose and throat (10).
Only teaching hospitals with at least 200 beds (or 100 beds along with at least four out of eight key medical technologies) are considered. Then hospitals are judged in a specialty only if they have a certain volume over a three-year period, or it was nominated by at least one doctor in the last three years of the magazine’s annual specialist survey.
Then the eligible hospitals are judged on the four aforementioned criteria.
Four of the specialties — ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation, and rheumatology — do not use the four criteria and are ranked only through the nominations of the three most recent doctors’ surveys.
Other Ohio hospitals made the rankings as well. University Hospitals Case Medical Center, for example, was ranked in the Top 50 in six categories, listed highest in orthopedics (20) and endocrinology (21).
The full report hits newsstands on Tuesday.
