For the 28th year, U.S. News & World Report has published its annual ranking of U.S. hospitals across the country. The 2017-18 Best Hospitals list (List) reports results of U.S. News & World Report’s rating and comparisons of more than 4,500 medical centers across the nation in 25 specialties, procedures and conditions based on the methodology developed and refined annually by U.S. News & World Report and its project partner, RTI International. While U.S. News & World Report touts its lists and findings as a valuable tool for guiding patient care choices, patients and others contemplating using the reported data to help evaluate hospital facilities or make care decisions will want to evaluate carefully the methodology used to derive the lists to assess the relevance of the reported rankings to their needs and purposes.
Based on the methodology specially developed by U.S. News & World Report along with RTI International for purposes of determining the ranking for a particular year, the Report separately evaluates and publishes the lists separately ranking the evaluated facilities based on the following criteria:
- 2017-18 Best Hospitals Specialty Rankings list
- 2017-18 Best Hospitals Procedure and Condition Ratings
- 2017-18 Best Hospitals Honor Roll
- 2017-18 Best Regional Hospitals
- 2017-18 Best Children’s Hospitals
The “Best Hospitals Honor Roll” that recognizes 20 hospitals that U.S. News & World Report concluded showed “ unusual competence across a range of adult specialties, procedures and conditions … tak[ing]” into account the full range of adult inpatient care – both performance in the Best Hospitals specialty rankings and in the Best Hospitals procedures and conditions based upon the combined points earned by the ranked hospital using a complicated methodology summarized here. Using this methodology, U.S. News & World Report named the following 20 hospitals to its list of the 2017-18 Best Hospitals Honor Roll:
- Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
- Cleveland Clinic
- Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
- Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
- UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco
- University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor
- Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
- New York-Presbyterian Hospital, N.Y.
- Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Stanford, Calif.
- Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
- Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis
- Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago
- UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, Pittsburgh
- University of Colorado Hospital, Aurora
- Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Philadelphia
- Duke University Hospital, Durham, N.C.
- Mount Sinai Hospital, New York
- NYU Langone Medical Center, New York
- Mayo Clinic Phoenix
While no Texas hospitals were named among top 20 hospitals listed on the Best Hospitals Honor Role, U.S. Word & Report ranked the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center as the No. 1 cancer treatment center in the nation.
Within the Texas Region, U.S. News & World Report ranked Houston Methodist Hospital as the “No. 1 hospital in the state of Texas;” UT Southwestern” as the “best hospital in Dallas-Fort Worth,” and “the No. 2 hospital in the state of Texas;” followed by Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas No.3, Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
Houston, No.4 Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, No.5 and Medical City Dallas Hospital No. 6 on its list of the best hospitals in the state of Texas.
While U.S. News and World Report touts the lists as providing “rich data that patients can use to help them make informed decisions about where to receive surgical or medical care,” patients and others must read and evaluate carefully the explanation of the explanation of methodology used by U.S. News & World Report and RTI International set forth in the 2017-18 Best Hospitals Methodology Report to understand the basis and meanings of the rankings to understand the rankings and their implications. The findings and resulting lists reported are determined both by the data relied upon and the methodology developed and used to derive its findings. For instance, because the report relies heavily upon Medicare data to conduct the analysis, the analysis does not reflect the experience of typical patients under 65. Also, the findings of the report also are impacted by a broad range of other decisions made in the course of deriving the methodology for a particular year and are not necessarily consistent with ranking methodologies used by other ranking or credentialing organizations or even fully consistent with the methodology used by U.S. News & World Report to determine rankings reported for previous years. Accordingly, even U.S. News & World Report acknowledges that the top ranking of a hospital on the list does not necessarily mean that the listed hospital is the best hospital choice for a particular patient or condition as well as acknowledges other rating organization using different criteria and methodologies might reach different ranking results. Accordingly, the publishers state that they view the list as just a “starting point” to help patients decide where to seek care. “Patients still have to do their own research and talk with their doctors” to take into account other patient specific factors including the care needs of the patient, stress and expense of travel and lodging in another city and their insurer’s willingness to pay for care if a hospital is out of network.
Do the reported rankings agree with your experience and expectations? How valuable do you view the U.S. News & World Report list and findings? How do you expect your family or your health plan to use this or other rankings for purposes of guiding or deciding patient care choices? Join the discussion on the Solutions Law Press, Inc. PROJECT COPE: Coalition on Patient Empowerment Facebook page @ProjectCOPECoalition or on LinkedIn in our COPE: Coalition On Patient Empowerment Group .
About The Author
Recognized as “Legal Leader™ Texas Top Rated Lawyer” in both Health Care Law and Labor and Employment Law, a “Texas Top Lawyer,” and an “AV-Preeminent” and “Top Rated Lawyer” by Martindale-Hubble, singled out as among the “Best Lawyers In Dallas” in employee benefits by D Magazine; Cynthia Marcotte Stamer is a practicing attorney and management consultant, author, public policy advocate and lecturer widely recognized for her nearly 30 years’ of work and pragmatic thought leadership, publications and training on health coverage and health care, health plan and employee benefits, workforce and related regulatory and other compliance, performance management, risk management, product and process development, public policy, operations and other concerns.
Throughout her legal and consulting career, Ms. Stamer has drawn recognition for combining extensive knowledge and experience with her talents as an insightful innovator and problem solver when advising, representing and defending employer and other plan sponsors, insurers, fiduciaries, insurers, electronic and other technology, plan administrators and other service providers, governments and others about health coverage, benefit program design, funding, documentation, administration, data security and use, contracting, plan, public and regulatory reforms and enforcement, and other risk management and operations matters as well as for her work and thought leadership on a broad range of other health, employee benefits, human resources and other workforce, insurance, tax, compliance and other matters. Her experience encompasses leading and supporting the development and defense of innovative new programs, practices and solutions; advising and representing clients on routine plan establishment, plan documentation and contract drafting and review, administration, change and other compliance and operations crisis prevention and response, compliance and risk management audits and investigations, enforcement actions and other dealings with the US Congress, Departments of Labor, Treasury, Health & Human Services, Federal Trade Commission, Justice, state legislatures, attorneys general, insurance, labor, worker’s compensation, and other agencies and regulators, She also provides strategic and other supports clients in defending litigation as lead strategy counsel, special counsel and as an expert witness.
A Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, the American Bar Foundation and the Texas Bar Foundation, Ms. Stamer also shares shared her thought leadership, experience and advocacy on these and other concerns by her service in the leadership of a broad range of other professional and civic organization including her involvement as Executive Director of the Coalition on Responsible Health Policy and its PROJECT COPE; Coalition on Patient Empowerment, a founding Board Member and past President of the Alliance for Healthcare Excellence, past Board Member and Board Compliance Committee Chair for the National Kidney Foundation of North Texas; former Board President of the early childhood development intervention agency, The Richardson Development Center for Children; current Vice Chair of the ABA Tort & Insurance Practice Section Employee Benefits Committee, current Vice Chair of Policy for the Life Sciences Committee of the ABA International Section, Past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Section, Past Group Chair, current Defined Contribution Plan Committee Co-Chair, former Welfare Committee Chair and Co-Chair of the ABA RPTE Section Employee Benefits Group, immediate past RPTE Representative to ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Council Representative and current RPTE Representative to the ABA Health Law Coordinating Counsel, former Coordinator and a Vice-Chair of the Gulf Coast TEGE Council TE Division, past Chair of the Dallas Bar Association Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Committee, former member of the Board of Directors of the Southwest Benefits Association and others.
Ms. Stamer also is a highly popular lecturer, symposia chair and author, who publishes and speaks extensively on health and managed care industry, human resources, employment and other privacy, data security and other technology, regulatory and operational risk management for the American Bar Association, ALI-ABA, American Health Lawyers, Society of Human Resources Professionals, the Southwest Benefits Association, the Society of Employee Benefits Administrators, the American Law Institute, Lexis-Nexis, Atlantic Information Services, The Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), InsuranceThoughtLeaders.com, the Society of Professional Benefits Administrators, Benefits Magazine, Employee Benefit News, Texas CEO Magazine, HealthLeaders, the HCCA, ISSA, HIMSS, Modern Healthcare, Managed Healthcare, Institute of Internal Auditors, Society of CPAs, Business Insurance, Employee Benefits News, World At Work, Benefits Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Business Journal, the Houston Business Journal, and many other symposia and publications. She also has served as an Editorial Advisory Board Member for human resources, employee benefit and other management focused publications of BNA, HR.com, Employee Benefit News, InsuranceThoughtLeadership.com and many other prominent publications and speaks and conducts training for a broad range of professional organizations and for clients, serves on the faculty and planning committee of many workshops, seminars, and symposia, and on the Advisory Boards of InsuranceThoughtLeadership.com, HR.com, Employee Benefit News, and many other publications. For additional information about Ms. Stamer, see CynthiaStamer.com or contact Ms. Stamer via email to here or via telephone to (469) 767-8872.
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