WASHINGTON—The University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor ranked No. 11 nationally in the 2020-21 Best Hospitals rankings, released by US News.
The 31st edition of the rankings includes special recognition of the herculean efforts being mounted by the nation’s health professionals who have stepped up during COVID-19, often at great personal risk. The U.S. News Hospital Heroes series is a cornerstone of this year’s rankings package, profiling more than 65 health care heroes from across the country, along with commentary from top executives at hospitals who faced the pandemic head on.
Included in the Hospital Heroes profiles is Rana Awdish, a critical care doctor at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Michigan’s top 10 hospitals, following UM-Ann Arbor, were: Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak; Beaumont Hospital Grosse Pointe; Beaumont Hospital Troy; Spectrum Health Butterworth and Blodgett Campuses, Grand Rapids; Munson Medical Center, Traverse City; Ascension Providence Hospital, Southfield; St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor; Bronson Methodist Hospital, Kalamazoo; and Ascension Borgess Hospital, Kalamazoo. Michigan rankings may be found at https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/mi.
For 2020-21, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. claimed the No. 1 spot on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll. The Cleveland Clinic ranked No. 2, followed by Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore at No. 3. In the specialty rankings, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center ranked No. 1 in Cancer, the Cleveland Clinic is No. 1 in Cardiology & Heart Surgery, and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City is No. 1 in Orthopedics. See the full rankings at https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals.
“The pandemic has altered, perhaps permanently, how patients get care and from whom they get it. Amid the disruption, we are steadfastly committed to providing the public with authoritative data for comparing hospital quality,” said Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News. “No hospital’s clinical team came through this unprecedented health crisis unscathed. Our Hospital Heroes series is a tribute to recognizing individuals at urban and rural hospitals in communities across the country who have gone above and beyond during this unparalleled time in history.”
The coronavirus crisis also has unmasked the deadly effects of health disparities by race, ethnicity and other social determinants. The U.S. News Hospital Heroes series highlights a community health equity leader, a doctor in hard-hit Navajo Nation and a public health leader who have spoken out about structural forces that drive racial and ethnic health inequities. While health inequities have existed in the U.S. health care system since its inception, efforts to quantify these gaps in a comparable way across individual hospitals have been scarce. U.S. News recently announced it will use more than three decades of experience in hospital quality measurement to contribute to the much needed dialogue on disparities in hospital care. In a new analysis, U.S. News examined seven years of Medicare records that reveal broad and enduring racial disparities in surgical care access and quality of that care.
Alongside these firsthand accounts, the 2020-21 Best Hospitals editorial package features commentaries from hospital leaders addressing ways hospitals and health systems are navigating the path forward along with reporting on topics from the rise in telemedicine to provider burnout and mental health strain stemming from the pandemic.
U.S. News updated rankings for 16 medical specialties, which cover Cancer, Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Diabetes & Endocrinology, Ear, Nose & Throat, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Gynecology, Nephrology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Ophthalmology, Orthopedics, Psychiatry, Pulmonology & Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, Rheumatology and Urology. This year, 134 hospitals out of more than 4,500 were nationally ranked in one specialty, while 563 were ranked among the Best Regional Hospitals in a state or metro area.
The rankings are produced by U.S. News with RTI International, a research organization based in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
The data used in the 2020-21 Best Hospitals rankings and ratings come from a period predating the COVID-19 pandemic and were not affected by the pandemic’s impact on hospitals. The U.S. News Best Hospitals methodologies are based largely on objective measures such as risk-adjusted survival and discharge-to-home rates, volume, and quality of nursing, among other care-related indicators.
Debuting this year, U.S. News released a new cardiac rating that measures the quality of hospitals’ transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) programs. Developed in recent years, TAVR is rapidly being adopted as a minimally invasive alternative to aortic valve surgery. For more information on the methodology please refer to the FAQ.
The rankings will be published in the U.S. News “Best Hospitals 2021” guidebook (ISBN 9781931469951), available for pre-order now from the U.S. News Online Store and for purchase at other bookstores Oct. 6.