Health Buzz: America’s Best Hospitals

U.S. News & World Report Announces America's Best Hospitals

Yesterday, U.S. News released its annual ranking of America's Best Hospitals. The rankings of the country's elite medical centers are a tool for patients who need medical sophistication that most facilities cannot offer. This year, the 20th for Best Hospitals, institutions are ranked in 16 specialties, from cancer and heart disease to respiratory disorders and urology. A total of 4,861 hospitals were considered; 174, or fewer than 0.4 percent of the total, were ranked in even one of the 16 specialties. Hard data, such as death rates and numbers of nurses, largely determined 12 of the 16 specialty rankings.

To be a candidate for these specialties, a hospital first had to meet any one of three criteria: be a teaching hospital, have at least 200 beds, or have at least 100 beds and at least four out of eight important medical technologies, such as current-generation CT scanners and precision radiation therapies. This year, 44 percent of all hospitals met that test. Those hospitals next had to show a minimum number of Medicare inpatient discharges for certain procedures and conditions in 2005, 2006, and 2007. The number varied by specialty—325 in cancer, for example. Or they had to have been nominated by at least one physician in U.S. News surveys in 2007, 2008, and 2009. The 1,859 hospitals meeting those criteria received a U.S. News Score from 0 to 100, based on reputation, death rate, patient safety, and care-related factors such as nursing and patient services. The 50 highest scorers are ranked. U.S. News's rankings editor Avery Comarow gives more detail in America's Best Hospitals: How We Selected Them.

Of the 174 hospitals that are ranked in one or more specialties, 21 qualified for the Honor Roll by earning high scores in at least six specialties. This demonstrates unusual breadth of excellence, Comarow writes. See a list of the complete rankings at U.S. News's America's Best Hospitals and take a photo-guided tour of the Honor Roll.

Along with the hospital rankings and America's Best Childrens Hospitals, U.S. News's latest issue offers features that detail the future of medicine. Hospitals of the future will be high-tech, U.S. News contributor Michelle Andrews reports. One of the most anticipated developments is that technology will allow hospitals to do a better job of keeping people out of them, she writes. But here's a look at the downside of high-tech care. Experts say that spending on new health technology—not just fancy machines but also drugs, devices, and procedures—makes up as much as two thirds of the more than 6 percent annual increase in healthcare costs (this year's costs: $2.5 trillion). And one prominent health economist shared his view on today's healthcare costs and efforts to overhaul the system.

U.S. News also assembled a roster of smart and imaginative researchers whose pioneering work will help to shape medicine's future. These pioneers have been deep into such projects as seeking a way to erase traumatic memories and building new body parts from scratch. Researchers spotlighted include a team that is using gene therapy to reverse near-blindness, a man who is developing an artificial pancreas for people with diabetes, and a woman whose work may help unlock the mysteries of aging and cancer.

Learn how today's physicians are practicing on medicine's front lines in our special report on The Art of Medicine.

—Megan Johnson

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