In the magazine’s 2023-2024 list, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, takes over the No. 2 spot from Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., which dropped to No. 3. Cedars-Sinai held the No. 3 on the 2022-2023 rankings.
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City holds the No. 4 spot in 2023-2024, up from No. 6; NYU Langone Hospitals, New York, continue to hold the No. 5 spot.
New York–Presbyterian Hospital–Columbia and Cornell in New York City is No. 6, down from No. 4 i.
Northwestern Medicine-Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago takes over the No. 7 spot (up from No. 8), while Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston holds the No. 8 (down from No. 7).
Stanford (Calif.) Health Care–Stanford Hospital holds the No. 9 spot, the same as 2, and Lenox Hill Hospital at Northwell Health in New York is No. 10 on the list.
U.S. News evaluated 779 hospitals and ranked the top 50 that care for patients with challenging heart and vascular cases, including heart transplants; implantation of cardiac devices, such as pacemakers and defibrillators; major chest procedures and patients with cardiovascular disease and other complex conditions, such as endocarditis; and heart failure and circulatory issues.
“Consumers want useful resources to help them assess which hospital can best meet their specific care needs,” Ben Harder, chief of health analysis and managing editor at U.S. News, said in a statement.
“The 2023-2024 Best Hospitals rankings offer patients and the physicians with whom they consult a data-driven source for comparing performance in outcomes, patient satisfaction, and other metrics that matter to them,” Mr. Harder said.
Best hospitals overall honor roll
In 2023-2024, as in prior years, U.S. News also recognized Honor Roll hospitals that have excelled across multiple areas of care. However, in 2023-2024, for the first time, there is no ordinal ranking of hospitals making honor roll.
In a letter to hospital leaders, U.S. News explained that the major change in format came after months of deliberation, feedback from health care organizations and professionals, and an analysis of how consumers navigate their website.
Ordinal ranking of hospitals that make the honor roll “obscures the fact that all of the Honor Roll hospitals have attained the highest standard of care in the nation,” the letter reads.
With the new format, honor roll hospitals are listed in alphabetical order. In 2023-2024, there are 22.
- Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis
- Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
- Cleveland Clinic
- Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania–Penn Medicine, Philadelphia
- Houston Methodist Hospital
- Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
- Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
- Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
- Mount Sinai Hospital, New York
- New York–Presbyterian Hospital–Columbia and Cornell
- North Shore University Hospital at Northwell Health, Manhasset, N.Y.
- Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago
- NYU Langone Hospitals, New York
- Rush University Medical Center, Chicago
- Stanford (Calif.) Health Care–Stanford Hospital
- UC San Diego Health–La Jolla (Calif.) and Hillcrest Hospitals
- UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
- UCSF Health–UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco
- University of Michigan Health, Ann Arbor
- UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn.
According to U.S. News, to keep pace with consumers’ needs and the ever-evolving landscape of health care, “several refinements” are reflected in the latest best hospitals rankings.
These include the introduction of outpatient outcomes in key specialty rankings and surgical ratings, the expanded inclusion of other outpatient data, an increased weight on objective quality measures, and a reduced weight on expert opinion.
In addition, hospital profiles on the U.S. News website feature refined health equity measures, including a new measure of racial disparities in outcomes.
The full report for best hospitals, best specialty hospitals, and methodology is available online.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.