U.S. News & World Report has released its annual rankings of top children’s hospitals across the United States. As no surprise, Boston’s Children’s Hospital and medical community outperformed other pediatric centers across the nation overall as well as in particular specialties.
Children’s Hospital Boston was tied for the #1 best children’s hospital in America along with Children’s Hospital Philadelphia. This ranking is out of 180 pediatric centers across the nation. Last year Children’s Hospital Boston stood alone at #1.
Out of the ten specialty Pediatric categories evaluated, Children’s Boston was the only hospital to rank in the top three of each category. It is ranked #1 in five of the categories, down from six #1 rankings last year, including best hospital rankings in Cancer, Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Nephrology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Orthopedics and Urology specialties. Children’s Boston ranked #2 in three of the categories, including Neonatology, Gastroenterology, and Diabetes & Endocrinology. It ranked #3 in one category, Pulmonology.
Children’s Hospital Boston is one of the oldest pediatric centers in America. Founded in 1869 with 20 beds, today it houses 396 beds for children under the age of 21. Boston Children’s keeps ahead in part due to its partnership with the well respected Harvard Medical School, which is the University’s primary pediatric teaching hospital. It also partners with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to operate the Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center, an integrated pediatric oncology program. This helped keep its #1 ranking as the best cancer hospital for children.
“We’re honored by this recognition from U.S. News, but it really is in our patients’ and families’ eyes where we want to be number one,” says James Mandell, MD, CEO of Children’s Hospital Boston. “We see this as a challenge to innovate and push care forward, so we can offer the very best care and service to our families every day.”
Below are the full rankings of the best children’s hospitals in America for 2011-2012, which will be released in the August print edition of U.S. News & World Reports:
For U.S. News’ methodology around these rankings, you can learn more here. The publication also put together a slideshow of photos taking you inside some of these top ranked hospitals.
We look forward to keeping an eye out for the 2011-2012 general Hospital rankings, whereby U.S. News & World Reports evaluates 5,000 hospitals across the nation in fifteen different specialties.
Last year (2010-2011) Mass General Hospital was ranked highest among Boston hospitals, achieving top 3 rankings in five of the fifteen categories ranked. MGH was ranked the #2 best hospital in Diabetes & Endocrinology, #3 in Ear, Nose & Throat, #3 in Neurology & Neurosurgery, #3 in Orthopedics, and #1 in Psychiatry. As for other Boston hospitals achieving top three rankings last year, McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. was ranked the #3 best hospital for Psychiatry and Brigham and Women’s Hospital was ranked #3 in Gynecology.
