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When you need urgent, serious, or specialized care most people go to the nearest hospital. It is usually a goal for the health care community to work in tandem to provide patients with the best care possible and hospitals are an integral part of that network.

Generally hospitals are ranked by city or state, but rarely on a country basis, due to the difficulty of assembling information.  However, U.S. News recently released a list of hospitals ranked on a national basis and they have done so annually for almost 20 years.

The most recent report,  assembled by RTI International, looked at statistics for 5,453 hospitals.  Of those, 170 scored high enough to make an appearance on the specialty ranking list, but only 10 made their “honor roll”.  This means they ranked near the top in about 6 of 16 specialties.

To reach the high standards for the “honor roll,” a hospital must meet one out of 3 requirements: membership in the Council of Teaching Hospitals, affiliation with a medical school, or have available 6 of the 13 technologies like.  Unfortunately about 2/3 of all hospitals surveyed could not meet those standards.

In addition to the rankings for specialties, U.S. News also assigned a score from 0-100 that was made up of 3 components: reputation, death rate, and care-related factors such as nursing and patient services.  So if a hospital made the “honor roll” they exceeded standard levels for care.

The List

1. Johns Hopkins Hospital - 30 points in 15 specialties.

2. Mayo Clinic - 28 points in 15 specialties

3. UCLA - 25 points in 14 specialties

4. Cleveland Clinic - 25 points in 13 specialties

5. Massachussets General Hospital

6. NY Presbyterian University Hospital

7. UCSF Medical Center

8. Brigham and Women’s Hospital

9. Duke University Medical Center

10. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

11. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle

12.  Barnes Jewish Hospital Washington University

Outside of the top 12, but still on the Honor Roll were:

13. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers in Ann Arbor

14.  University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

15. Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville

16.  Stanford Hospital and Clinics in California

17. University of Chicago Medical Center

18. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles

19. Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut

Hospitals that ranked the highest on the list will generally have the best surgeons and professionals in the United States. The top ranked hospitals are also able to handle urgent and extreme medical cases utilizing the newest technology and will have the most recent options available to the patient.

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