Best Hospitals In Massachusetts: U.S. News 2019 Rankings

U.S. News & World Report has released its latest rankings of the best hospitals in the United States with an updated methodology that emphasizes two new patient-centric measures. In Massachusetts, two hospitals made the honor roll and nine were on the state’s best hospitals list.

“We use a number of different measures to assess hospital quality and we separately assess each hospital in many different specialties and services that hospitals offer,” Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News told Patch.

The hospital rankings for 2019-20 include the honor roll, top-ranked hospitals in 12 specialty categories and the top-ranked hospitals by state and metro region. See how Massachusetts hospitals did below.

Across the 12 specialty rankings — which cover categories like cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, and nephrology — U.S. News & World added two new measures that are patient centered: patient outcome and patient experience.

“In each of those areas, we are now assessing how successful a hospital is at sending patients home,” Harder said. The rankings now look at whether after receiving care, patients end up going home or require further care at a rehab facility or even at a different hospital.

“That’s an important outcome for patients,” Harder said. “Patients do want to be home recovering and spending time with their families.”

However, the methodology adjusts for how sick a patient was when they were admitted to the hospital so that hospitals that admit sicker patients are not penalized in the rankings.

The second patient-centered measure added to the methodology is patient experience. Data from a federally mandated survey was used to assess this measure, according to U.S. News.

The survey covers topics like how good doctors and nurses were at communicating with patients and how well a patient understood how to take care of themselves after leaving the hospital.

“So that patient experience dimension is one that we added to our specialty rankings this year, and obviously that’s important for patients too because they not only want to get good care and have a good outcome but also feel that what mattered to them was considered and taken into account in the care they got,” Harder said.

Honor Roll Hospitals

U.S. News explains that the hospitals that make the honor roll deliver exceptional treatment across multiple areas of care.

“The honor roll is geared to identifying hospitals that are both exceptionally good at the service they offer and offer a wide breadth of service,” Harder said, explaining that by definition, that means hospitals that are highly ranked across many or most specialties.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota took the No.1 spot on the 2019-20 honor roll, followed by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Cleveland Clinic and New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell rounded out the top five on the honor roll.

The other hospitals on the honor roll are:

• UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles (6)
• UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco (7)
• Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles (8)
• NYU Langone Hospitals, New York, N.Y. (9)
• Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago (10)
• University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor (11)
• Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, Calif. (12)
• Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston (13)
• Mount Sinai Hospital, New York (14)
• UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, Pittsburgh (15)
• Keck Hospital of USC, Los Angeles (16)
• University of Wisconsin Hospitals, Madison (17)
• Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia (tie) (18)
• Mayo Clinic-Phoenix (tie) (18)
• Houston Methodist Hospital (tie) (20)
• Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Conn. (tie) (20)

The 12 specialties that hospitals were ranked for are: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, gastroenterology and GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and lung surgery, and urology.

Massachusetts General Hospital was ranked in every category.

Regional Hospital Rankings

In Massachusetts, the top-ranked hospitals are:

Massachusetts General Hospital

Cancer, 8th

Cardiology & Heat Surgery, 5th

Diabetes & Endocrinology, 2d

Ear, Nose & Throat, 2d

Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, 5th

Geriatrics, 11th

Gynecology, 6th

Nephrology, 7th

Neurology & Neurosurgery, 13th

Ophthalmology, 4th

Orthopedics, 6th

Psychiatry, 1st

Pulmonology & Lung Surgery, 5th

Rehabilitation, 3rd

Rheumatology, 6th

Urology, 11th

Brigham & Women's Hospital

Cancer, 5th

Cardiology & Heat Surgery, 9th

Diabetes & Endocrinology, 19th

Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, 48th

Geriatrics, 24th

Gynecology, 5th

Nephrology, 8th

Neurology & Neurosurgery, 17th

Orthopedics, High Performing

Pulmonology & Lung Surgery, 28th

Rheumatology, 5th

Urology, 41st

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Cancer, 24th

Diabetes & Endocrinology, 38th

Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, 5th

Geriatrics, 11th

Gynecology, 6th

Nephrology, High Performing

Neurology & Neurosurgery, High Performing

Lahey Hospital and Medical Center

Diabetes & Endocrinology, 30th

Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, 42d

Geriatrics, High Performing

Nephrology, High Performing

Neurology & Neurosurgery, High Performing

Pulmonology & Lung Surgery, High Performing

Urology, High Performing

Baystate Medical Center

Nephrology, High Performing

Orthopedics, High Performing

UMass Memorial Medical Center

No Rankings. No High Performing.

Newton Wellesley Hospital

Geriatrics, High Performing

Pulmonology & Lung Surgery, High Performing

Southcoast Charlton Memorial Hospital

Urology, High Performing

Tufts Medical Center

No Rankings. No High Performing.

Harder explains that hospitals that rank highly in specialty care are often regional or national referral centers, somewhere a patient may go to get a second opinion, even traveling across several states.

“Most patients can find the care they need in their community or near their community, in their insurance network,” he said.

The rankings for regional hospitals don’t require that these centers are strong in referral care because many patients don’t need that level of care. The local rankings are geared towards identifying hospitals that are good at a range of services.

“The vast majority of patients don’t need a top ranked hospital for complex specialty care and their needs may be very well met by a best regional hospital that can offer a breadth of services relevant to their care,” Harder said.

Methodology

U.S. News & World Report said the 2019-20 rankings evaluated nearly every community hospital in America. Only 165 hospitals out of over 4,500 were ranked in one specialty while 569 hospitals were ranked among the best regional hospitals. A hospital was ranked regionally based on its performance in delivering complex and common care, U.S. News says. The rankings are jointly produced by U.S. News and RTI International, a North Carolina-based research organization. (Read the full U.S. News best hospitals methodology.)