12 FL Hospitals Named Among ‘Best’ For Maternity Care: New Report

FLORIDA — Twelve hospitals in Florida made the grade in a new ranking of the Best Hospitals for Maternity Care for 2023-24 released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report.

The ranking of 680 hospitals nationwide is a guide for parents making one of the most important decisions of their lives — where their baby will be born. Each hospital participating in the U.S. News survey received a scorecard describing their performance on a checklist of items parents look for when choosing where to have their baby.

Jennifer Winston, a health data scientist for U.S. News, said the top hospitals in the survey are those with a “high performing” designation for care given to patients with uncomplicated pregnancies. These hospitals had Cesarean Section rates of 26 percent or lower and newborn complication rates of 37 percent or lower, Winston explained in a news release.

Of the 29 Florida hospitals that participated in the U.S. News maternity services survey, the following received the high-performing designation:

• AdventHealth Wesley Chapel
• Ascension St. Vincent's Clay County, Middleburg
• Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital
• Cape Coral Hospital
• Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital, Vero Beach
• Cleveland Clinic Martin Health - Stuart
• Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center
• Orlando Health South Lake Hospital
• Rockledge Regional Medical Center
• Tampa General Hospital
• UF Health Jacksonville
• UF Health Shands Hospital, Gainesville

New to the rankings this year is the inaugural “Maternity Care Access Hospitals” list, which highlights 73 hospitals providing services in what otherwise would be maternity care deserts that have “left millions of people without local access to maternity care” in some parts of the country, Winston said.

In Florida, Maternity Care Access Hospitals are:

• NCH Baker Hospital, Naples
• Orlando Health South Lake Hospital
• Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital, Vero Beach

Other Florida hospitals that completed the U.S. News survey, but did not rank as “high performing” were:

• AdventHealth Orlando
• Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola Hospital
• Ascension St. Vincent's Southside Hospital, Jacksonville
• Baptist Health Baptist Hospital, Miami
• Baptist Health Bethesda Hospital East and West, Boynton Beach
• Baptist Health Homestead Hospital
• Baptist Health South Miami Hospital
• Baptist Health West Kendall Baptist Hospital, Miami
• Broward Health Coral Springs
• Broward Health Medical Center, Fort Lauderdale
• Memorial Hospital Miramar
• Memorial Hospital West, Pembroke Pines
• Memorial Regional Hospital, Hollywood
• NCH Baker Hospital, Naples
• Orlando Health-Orlando Regional Medical Center
• Sarasota Memorial Hospital
• Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare

The hospitals are ranked on objective measures of quality. Including C-section rate, lower-risk pregnancies, newborn complication rates, exclusive breast milk feeding rates, early elective delivery rates, birthing-friendly practices and transparency on racial/ethnic disparities, among other measures. Read more about the methodology.