Boston Children's Hospital Ranks Best in the Nation

U.S. News & World Report released a list of the best children's hospitals in the country Tuesday, and Boston Children's Hospital took the top spot by a wide margin.

The magazine — which publishes some of the most respected rankings on schools, hospitals, jobs and more — used data from a clinical survey of 183 hospitals along with a survey of pediatric specialists and sub-specialists. It then ranked the hospitals across 10 specialties — such as cancer and orthopedics — based on these three factors, weighted equally:

• "Clinical outcomes," such as cancer survival and infection rates
• "Efficient coordination of care," or how well the hospital complies with industry best practices
• "Sufficient care-related resources," such as having adequate staff and programs for certain conditions

To make the magazine's "honor roll," a hospital had to rank in the top 10 percent in at least three specialties. Then, hospitals were assigned a points score — two points for ranking in the top 5 percentile of a specialty and one point for ranking in the next 5 percentile — to come up with the overall ranking.

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Boston Children's ranked first in the following specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery gastroenterology and GI surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, and urology. It ranked second in the remaining two categories: pulmonology and diabetes and endocrinology.

Here were the top 10 overall on the honor roll:
1. Boston Children's Hospital (20 points, 10 specialties)
2. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (19 points, 10 specialties)
3. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (15 points, 8 specialties)
4. Texas Children's Hospital, Houston (12 points, 7 specialties)
5. Seattle Children's Hospital (6 points, 5 specialties)
6. Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago(5 points, 4 specialties)
7. (tie) Children's Hospital Los Angeles (4 points, 4 specialties)
7. (tie) Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC (4 points, 4 specialties)
9. Children's Hospital Colorado, Aurora (4 points, 3 specialties)
10. (tie) Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, Palo Alto, Calif. (3 points, 3 specialties)
10. (tie) Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio (3 points, 3 specialties)

Explore the full children's hospital rankings, including by specialty, here.