Best Hospitals 2011-12: the Honor Roll

Best Hospitals List Dominated by Familiar Names

Robert Lowes
Authors and Disclosures

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July 19, 2011 — Quality improvement is a mantra among hospitals, but no institution has figured out how to improve well enough to replace Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, at the top of the annual list of best hospitals compiled by US News & World Report.
In the latest honor roll of hospitals, released today by the magazine, Johns Hopkins took first place for the 21st straight year.

Likewise, the same handful of hospitals nips at the heels of Johns Hopkins in the rankings year after year. Since 2008, the top 6 spots below number 1 have been occupied by the same 6 institutions, in various orders.

US News & World Report states that it aims to identify the best hospitals for patients with the toughest medical problems, as opposed to those who need routine care. To do that, the magazine ranks institutions in 16 different medical specialties ranging from cancer to psychiatry. For 12 of the specialties, the rankings are based on mortality rates, patient safety scores on measures such as surgical incisions that reopen, other care-related factors such as nurse-staffing levels, and reputation among medical specialists. Hospitals in the specialties of ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation, and rheumatology are judged solely on the basis of reputation, as most of the care in these fields is delivered in outpatient settings, where inpatient measures of quality would not readily apply.

Hospitals that rank near the top in 6 or more specialties land on the magazine's honor roll. This year, 17 institutions made the cut.

1. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland

2. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

3. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

4. Cleveland Clinic, Ohio

5. Ronald Reagan University of California–Los Angeles Medical Center

6. New York–Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell, New York City

7. University of California–San Francisco Medical Center

8. Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

9. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

10. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

11. Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri

12. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pennsylvania

13. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle

14. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor

15. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee

16. Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City

17. Stanford Hospital and Clinics, California

The top hospitals in each specialty, as judged by US News World & World Report, are as follows:

Cancer: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston
Cardiology and Heart Surgery: Cleveland Clinic
Diabetes and Endocrinology: Mayo Clinic
Ear, Nose, and Throat: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Gastroenterology: Mayo Clinic
Geriatrics: Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City
Gynecology: Mayo Clinic
Nephrology: Mayo Clinic
Neurology and Neurosurgery: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Ophthalmology: Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami, Florida
Orthopaedics: Hospital for Special Surgery, New York City
Psychiatry: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Pulmonology: National Jewish Health, Denver, Colorado/University of Colorado Hospital, Denver
Rehabilitation: Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Illinois
Rheumatology: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Urology: Johns Hopkins Hospital

The full list of top hospitals by specialty is available on the

US News & World Report Web site.