US News Announces Best Hospital Ranking for 2018-19

This article originally appeared on Pharmacy Times.

The Mayo Clinic, Minnesota earned the top spot on US News & World Report's

rank of Best Hospitals for the third consecutive year, and was among the Top 5 in selected specialties. The 29

^th

annual list is compiled to assist patients and their doctors in making informed decisions about where to receive care, according to the magazine.

In compiling is rankings, US News & World Report

had compared more than 4,500 medical centers nationwide across 25 specialties, procedures, and conditions. Following the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic placed second on the overall Best Hospitals list, and Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore is ranked third in the nation. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston and the University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor, placed fourth and fifth, respectively, rounding out the top five.

"For nearly 3 decades, US News

has strived to make hospital quality more transparent to health care consumers nationwide," said Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at US News

, in a prepared statement. "By providing the most comprehensive data available on nearly every hospital across the United States, we give patients, families, and physicians information to support their search for the best care across a range of procedures, conditions, and specialties."

In calculating the 2018-19 ranking, the methodology was changed to place greater emphasis on patient outcomes, and patient experience measures, according to the publication. Methodologies in most areas of care used to create the annual list are based largely or entirely on objective measures, including risk-adjusted survival and readmission rates, volume, patient safety and quality of nursing, among other care-related indicators.

The top 20 facilities ranked on this year’s Best Hospitals list includes 4 in California, 3 in New York, and 2 in Boston. Other cities represented on the list include St. Louis, Phoenix, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Durham, NC.

The 2018-19 Best Hospital’s Honor Roll, a distinction awarded to 20 hospitals delivering exceptional treatment across multiple areas of care, is as follows:

1. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

2. Cleveland Clinic

3. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore

4. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

5. University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor

6. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco

7. UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles

8. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

9. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Stanford, CA

10. New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell, NY

11. (tie) Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, MO

11. (tie) Mayo Clinic Phoenix

13. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

14. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia

15. (tie) NYU Langone Hospitals, New York

15. (tie) UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, Pittsburgh

17. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN

18. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York

19. Duke University Hospital, Durham, NC

20. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston

In addition to the Top 20 Best Hospitals, the Mayo Clinic was included with rankings for the Top 5 best hospitals across the nation for Cardiology and Heart Surgery, Cancer, and Orthopedics.

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