Methodology

For the 2023-2024 list, U.S. News drew from the 4,515 hospitals and healthcare facilities included in the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey of Hospitals.

U.S. News evaluated facilities across 15 specialties. On this year's list, 164 hospitals were ranked in at least one specialty.

To qualify as one of the top specialty hospitals, hospitals must meet one of the following criteria:

• Be a teaching hospital
• Be affiliated with a medical school
• Have at least 200 staffed beds
• Have at least 100 staffed beds and offer four or more key types of medical technology

U.S. News ranked three of the 15 specialties — ophthalmology, psychiatry, and rheumatology — based on a survey of experts.

For the other 12 specialties, U.S. News determined the rankings based largely on federal and industry data. The 12 data-driven specialties are:

1.       Cancer

2.       Cardiology & heart surgery

3.       Diabetes & endocrinology

4.       Ear, nose, & throat

5.       Gastroenterology & GI surgery

6.       Geriatrics

7.       Obstetrics & gynecology

8.       Neurology & neurosurgery

9.       Orthopedics

10.   Pulmonology & lung surgery

11.   Rehabilitation

12.   Urology

To achieve a rating in a specific specialty, hospitals had to meet a specialty-specific volume/discharge requirement. Or, if a hospital did not meet the volume/discharge requirement, hospitals had to have received nominations from at least 1% of the specialists responding to the reputational surveys over the past three years.

According to U.S. News, 2,320 hospitals were eligible for consideration among the 12 data-driven specialties. U.S. News scored eligible facilities based on four factors (note that cardiology & heart surgery, neurology & neurosurgery, obstetrics & gynecology, pulmonology & lung surgery, and rehabilitation had slightly different methodologies, detailed below):

• Outcomes, measured by risk-adjusted mortality and the rate patients are discharged home (45%)
• Structure of hospital resources directly related to patient care (35%)
• Process of delivering patient care/expert opinion (15%)
• Patient experience (5%)

Cardiology, heart & vascular surgery programs, neurology & neurosurgery programs, obstetrics & gynecology programs, and pulmonology & lung surgery programs were also judged on a fifth factor: public transparency.

For these programs, public transparency was weighted at 3% while process/expert opinion was weighted at 12%.

For rehabilitation programs, patient experience and public transparency were not considered. Instead, outcomes were weighted at 35%, structure was weighted at 35%, and process/expert opinion was weighted at 30%.

Honor roll

U.S. News recognized 22 facilities on an "Honor Roll." According to U.S. News, the facilities on the list demonstrate "exceptional breadth of excellence across clinical specialties." The honor roll awardees listed in alphabetical order include:

• Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis, MO)
• Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, MA)
• Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA)
• Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH)
• Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian (Philadelphia, PA)
• Houston Methodist Hospital (Houston, TX)
• Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD)
• Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA)
• Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN)
• Mount Sinai Hospital (New York, NY)
• New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York, NY)
• North Shore University Hospital at Northwell Health (Manhasset, NY
•  Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago, IL)
•  NYU Langone Hospitals (New York, NY)
• Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, IL)
• Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital (Stanford, CA)
• UC San Diego Health-LaJolla and Hillcrest Hospitals (San Diego, CA)
• UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA)
• UCSF Health-UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco, CA)
• University of Michigan Health-Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, MI)
•  UT Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas, TX)
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, TN)

For the full U.S. News & World Report "Best Hospitals" rankings across various specialties, click here.

(U.S. News & World Report 2023-2024 Best Hospitals rankings, 8/1; U.S. News & World Report 2023-2024 Best Hospitals methodology, accessed 7/31; U.S. News & World Report press release, 8/1)

Inclusion in U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals  rankings can establish a hospital or health system’s prominence in their market and nationally. Many health systems seek to improve their place in the U.S. News rankings, with the ultimate goal of earning a spot on the coveted Honor Roll, which includes the 20 top-scoring hospitals in the United States. In Our Take, we detail six imperatives that top-performing institutions use to drive their positions in the rankings.