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Statista and Newsweek have partnered to provide patients and family members with a comprehensive resource to informed decision making in finding the Best Specialized Hospitals in the United States for their specific treatment needs.
The America's Best Specialized Hospitals 2024 ranking awards the 200 leading cancer hospitals, 175 leading cardiac hospitals, 175 neurological hospitals, and the 175 leading orthopedic hospitals in the U.S.
The lists are based on four data sources:
1. Nationwide online survey
From April to May 2024 thousands of health care professionals and hospital managers with knowledge about the respective medical field were asked to recommend the leading specialized hospitals in the U.S. Recommendations for their own employer/ hospital were not allowed.
Participants were asked to rate the recommended cancer hospitals on a scale of 1-10 in the areas of: Social work program / supportive care services, psycho-oncological / psychosocial support, outpatient and inpatient palliative care, multidisciplinary care teams, cancer rehabilitation programs, patient education and counseling, clinical trials and research. For cardiac, neurological, and orthopedic hospitals the participants were asked to rate the following areas: Provision of care and patient safety, patient education and counseling, overall nurse staffing, technical equipment, and (with the exception of orthopedic hospitals) cardiac/neurological rehabilitation.
Additionally, participants could recommend the hospitals for notable treatments, conditions & surgeries which the hospitals offer.
These assessments and the recommendations were used to determine the reputation score, which has a weight of 40% of the overall score.
2. Results from patient surveys
Publicly available data from hospital surveys of patient experience during their hospitalizations. Survey topics included: cleanliness of the hospital, communication of the nurses/doctors, care transition, communication about medicines, discharge information, quietness, and staff responsiveness.
Those data were used to determine the patient experience score, which has a 15% weight of the overall score.
3. Hospital quality metrics
These are publicly available data from a variety of sources on indicators relevant to the respective medical fields. Data on infection prevention, vaccination rates (of staff), timely and effective care as well as on readmissions relevant to the field was available from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Hospitals with a 1-star rating from CMS were not eligible for the ranking. The CMS data accounts for 79.5% of the hospital quality metrics score.
From The Joint Commission, an independent, nonprofit hospital accreditation organization, data were available for hospital accreditations and certifications specific to respective medical fields. For Cancer Hospitals, accreditation from the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) was taken into consideration as well. The accreditations/certifications accounts for 5.5% of the hospital quality metrics score.
Additionally, the AHA Annual Survey of Hospitals Database has been included in the scoring model. The database contains data provided by more than 6,200 hospitals and 400 health care systems and features over 1,300 hospital data points. For America's Best Specialized Hospitals, structural and organizational data of hospital facilities was used to be included in the hospital quality metrics score. The AHA data accounts for 15% of the hospital quality metrics score. All indicators factored into the scoring models are denoted in the appendix of the respective methodology documents presented in the online publication.
Those data were used to determine the hospital quality metrics score, which has a 41.5% weight of the overall score.
4. PROMs Implementation
A PROMs implementation score has been included in the scoring model of the America's Best Specialized Hospitals project. In the fall and winter of 2023, Newsweek and Statista reached out to hospitals and conducted a voluntary survey about the implementation and use of PROMs.
This year, Statista has partnered with the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM, www.ichom.org) as a knowledge partner. ICHOM is the world's leading non-profit organization dedicated to development of standardized measurement of patient-important outcomes (including PROMs) as a basis for driving value-based health care. ICHOM is contributing to the future development of the PROMs implementation survey, in a manner that can drive not only measurement but use of the data from PROMs (and other patient-important outcomes) to advance value based healthcare.
A grading system for the different questions was built to determine a PROMs implementation score for each participating hospital. Only hospitals which achieved a minimum of 50% (of the maximum 100% score) were eligible to be graded and received a maximum of up to 3.5% towards the overall score.
Disclaimer: The rankings are comprised exclusively of hospitals that are eligible regarding the scope described in this document. The ranking is the result of an elaborate process which, due to the interval of data-collection and analysis, is a reflection of the last 12 months. Furthermore, events preceding or following the period June 19, 2023 – June 19, 2024, and/or pertaining to individual persons affiliated/associated to the facilities were not included in the metrics. As such, the results of this ranking should not be used as the sole source of information for future deliberations.
The information provided in this ranking should be considered in conjunction with other available information about hospitals or, if possible, accompanied by a visit to a facility. The quality of hospitals that are not included in the rankings is not disputed.
About Statista R
Statista R is a world leader in the creation of company, brand, and product rankings and top lists, based on comprehensive market research and data analysis: Statista R recognizes the best. With a team of over 100 expert analysts and in cooperation with more than 40 high profile media brands across all continents, Statista R creates transparency for consumers and business decision makers and helps companies build trust and recognition across a plethora of industries and product categories. Visit r.statista.com for further information about Statista R and our rankings.
Statista R is a division of Statista. The leading data and business intelligence portal provides an extensive collection of statistics, reports, and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries. Find out more at statista.com.
About ICHOM
The International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM, www.ichom.org) is the leading non-profit dedicated to transforming healthcare by focusing on what truly matters to patients. They accomplish this by empowering patient and clinical leaders to standardize important clinical, quality of life, function and experience results for health care, and enabling transparent large-scale use to achieve patient-centric health system transformation. ICHOM's standardized 'sets' of patient-centered outcomes measures help all actors in healthcare design, deliver and evaluate care based on outcomes that matter to patients. To date, ICHOM has developed 45 outcome measure sets for conditions. The sets are available in IT-ready interoperable formats and have been implemented in 500+ care settings in 42+ countries.
Download the full methodology here.
