The Johns
Hopkins Hospital has once again — for the 18th
consecutive time — earned the top spot
in U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of
American hospitals, placing first in three medical
specialties and very high in 12 others.
"We appreciate this acknowledgment of our commitment
to patient care and emphasize as
always that we are honored to be in the very good company
of our academic medical center peers
nationwide," said a joint letter announcing the news from
Edward D. Miller, dean of the medical faculty
and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Ronald R. Peterson,
president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital
and Health System.
"We say it each year and we mean it: this recognition
is principally a tribute to the significant
contributions made by our faculty, our nurses, our staff
and the community physicians to Johns
Hopkins Medicine."
The letter also addressed the "understandable and
increasing interest by the public in hospital
report cards," adding that individual decisions about where
to go for care are "complex, highly
personal and not easily guided by any single ranking or
report."
"We applaud sincere efforts to assess the safety,
outcomes and service of institutions like
ours, and trust that as they improve over time they will be
of even more use in informing the medical
community, patients and insurers," wrote Miller and
Peterson. Rankings, they added, "tell only part of
a great hospital's story and we hope the public and their
physicians will take this opportunity to learn
more about us and all of the ranked institutions."
In addition to landing at the overall No. 1 spot on
the Honor Roll by accumulating 30 points in 15
of the 16 ranked specialties, JHH ranked No. 1 in Ear, Nose
and Throat, Rheumatology and Urology;
No. 2 in Geriatrics, Gynecology and Obstetrics, Neurology
and Neurosurgery, Ophthalmology and
Psychiatry; No. 3 in Cancer, Digestive Diseases,
Endocrinology, Heart Disease and Heart Surgery, and
Respiratory Medicine; No. 6 in Kidney Disease and
Orthopedics; and No. 15 in Rehabilitation Medicine.
Only 170 hospitals out of 5,453 that went through the
magazine's evaluation process made the
rankings standard in one or more specialties this year, and
only 19 of the 170 made the Honor Roll of
institutions ranked at or near the top in six or more
specialties, the magazine reported.
According to the magazine, this year's guide reports
results "driven largely by hard data" in 12
of the 16 ranked specialties. For the remaining four, the
magazine based its results on three years of
nominations by board-certified specialists who were
surveyed for each field.
Hospitals first had to qualify for the 12 data-driven
specialties by meeting requirements
related to teaching, medical school affiliation and
advanced technology. Nearly two-thirds of hospitals
failed to meet that standard.
The magazine's methodology, it says, then evaluates
the remaining institutions using such
objective indicators as government statistics on death
rates; recognized statistics related to patient
volumes, nurse staffing and expertise; and such factors as
the availability of robotic surgery, self-
controlled pain relief, translators, cell transplants for
cancer therapy, state-certified trauma care
and discharge planning. Weight also was given to such
things as designation as a National Cancer
Institute cancer center and certification as an Alzheimer's
center by the National Institute on Aging.
In their letter, Miller and Peterson stated that the
magazine's recognition is "especially
welcome news" as redevelopment of the East Baltimore
medical campus goes into high gear. Johns
Hopkins also has intensified programs in patient safety,
diversity, innovation and medical science
education.
Other institutions rounding out the Honor Roll top 10
were the Mayo Clinic; Ronald Reagan UCLA
Medical Center; Cleveland Clinic; Massachusetts General
Hospital; New York-Presbyterian University
Hospital of Columbia and Cornell; University of California,
San Francisco Medical Center; Brigham and
Women's Hospital and Duke University Medical Center (tied);
and the Hospital of the University of
Pennsylvania and the University of Washington Medical
Center (tied).
For a detailed list of all the rankings, go to:
www.hopkinsmedicine.org or
www.usnews.com/besthospitals.
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