Rush University Medical Center and Northwestern Memorial Hospital are among the top 22 hospitals in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report — an organization that has come under fire in recent months for its ratings systems.
Rush and Northwestern were the only Illinois hospitals to make the national list this year. U.S. News said the two hospitals tied for best in Illinois, with University of Chicago Medical Center coming in third in the state.
The ratings release follows criticism leveled at U.S. News over its ranking systems. In recent months, at least two hospital systems — the University of Pennsylvania Health System and St. Luke’s University Health Network — said they no longer wished to participate in the ratings, saying they don’t paint an accurate picture of hospitals’ quality.
U.S. News also ranks medical schools and law schools each year. Over the past year, a number of law and medical schools have also dropped out of U.S. News’ rating systems. University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine said in January it would no longer submit data to U.S. News to help it rank the medical school.
For this ratings release, U.S. News changed parts of its hospital ratings system, though the changes have been in the works for some time, and were not in response to the recent criticism, said Ben Harder, chief of health analysis at U.S. News & World Report.
In the past, U.S. News would rank the top hospitals in the country, but this year they are all listed together with no national rankings assigned. That change was driven partly by feedback from hospitals, as well as a desire to focus on the most useful information for consumers, Harder said.
“By removing the numerical rankings form the honor roll, we’re making sure people are paying attention to the rankings we think are most useful for them in making decisions, which are the specialty rankings and the regional ones,” Harder said.
Each year, U.S. News ranks hospitals across a number of different specialties, such as gastroenterology, cardiology and orthopedics. Rush and Northwestern each had 11 specialties rank among the top 50 in the country this year, and University of Chicago Medical Center had 10.
Northwestern had five specialties rank in the top 10 nationally, including cardiology, heart and vascular surgery; diabetes and endocrinology; gastroenterology and GI surgery; geriatrics; and neurology and neurosurgery. Rush had one rank in the top 10 nationally: orthopedics.
U.S. News also ranks hospitals in each state. In Illinois, 21 hospitals performed well enough to be ranked by U.S. News this year.
Chicago’s Shirley Ryan AbilityLab was ranked as the best hospital for rehabilitation in the country for the 33rd consecutive year.
This year, U.S. News also put less emphasis on expert opinions. Each year, U.S. News asks specialists to name what they believe to the best hospital programs, but those opinions were given less weight this year. More weight was given to objective measures. More data related to outpatient services were also included, given that many procedures and services are increasingly being offered on an outpatient basis.
To rate top hospitals in the country, specialties and regions, U.S. News looked at data and information from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, American Hospital Association, professional organizations and medical specialists.
A number of top hospitals, including Rush, were pushing to see U.S. News move away from numerically ranking the nation’s top hospitals, said Dr. Brian Stein, chief quality officer at Rush. Many of the hospitals in the top 20 nationwide are very close in quality, Stein said. Last year, Northwestern ranked ninth best in the country, and Rush ranked 20th.
Rush is pleased to be among this year’s top 22 hospitals in the country, but there’s still room for improvement within hospital rating systems, including U.S. News’, Stein said.
“I think there’s still a lot of work to do at the national level on measuring quality, and I think that’s across all of the rating and rankings systems,” Stein said.
A number of organizations rate hospitals each year, using different methodologies. Last week, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its star ratings. Both Rush and Northwestern Memorial earned five out of five stars for quality, and four out of five stars for patient experience. University of Chicago Medical Center earned four out of five stars for quality, and three out of five stars for patient experience.
Another organization, the Leapfrog Group, gave Rush and University of Chicago A grades for safety in its most recent ratings. Leapfrog gave Northwestern a B grade.
Hospitals often tout their high marks in their marketing, as they compete against other hospitals for patients.
Other hospitals that ranked in U.S. News’ top 10 in Illinois this year (with some tying) include: NorthShore University HealthSystem (multiple hospitals), Advocate Christ Medical Center, Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, Edward Hospital, Loyola University Medical Center and Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital.
