U.S. News & World Report Announces the Best Children's Hospitals 2014-2015

WASHINGTON, June 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. News & World Report, publisher of Best Hospitals, today released Best Children's Hospitals 2014-15. The rankings help guide families of children with life-threatening or rare conditions to the best medical care available. Access to the rankings, which can be found at http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/pediatric-rankings, is free.

The eighth annual rankings highlight the top 50 U.S. hospitals in each of 10 pediatric specialties: cancer, cardiology & heart surgery, diabetes & endocrinology, gastroenterology & GI surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology & neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology. In the 2014-15 rankings, 89 hospitals ranked in at least one of the 10 specialties.

Boston Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia tied for first place on the Honor Roll, which highlights pediatric centers that provide high-quality care in three or more specialties. Both hospitals posted outstanding scores in all 10 specialties. Of the 89 ranked hospitals, 10 earned a place on the Honor Roll.

The 2014-15 Best Children's Hospital Honor Roll

1. Boston Children's Hospital

1. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

3. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

4. Texas Children's Hospital, Houston

5. Children's Hospital Los Angeles

6. Children's Hospital Colorado, Aurora

7. Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio

8. Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago

9. Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC

10. Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Baltimore

Introduced by U.S. News in 2007 to help families of very sick children, the Best Children's Hospitals rankings are the only comprehensive source of quality-related information on individual pediatric centers in the U.S.

"Finding care for a child with a life-threatening or rare condition is one of the most overwhelming experiences parents face," said Ben Harder, managing editor of health care analysis at U.S. News. "We hope the rankings and information in Best Children's Hospitals help make a family's search for the best care possible for their child a little easier."

The methodology behind the new rankings underwent various changes. The scoring weight assigned to infection prevention and to use of "best practices" was increased and the weight of hospital reputation was decreased, to cite two such changes.

"Each year, we strive to hone the methodology and improve the rankings' usefulness to families," said Avery Comarow, U.S. News health rankings editor. "With the input of working groups of pediatric medical experts, we've made these changes to better measure care in each specialty."

Five-sixths (83.3 percent) of each hospital's score relied on patient outcomes and the care-related resources each hospital makes available. To gather clinical data, U.S. News sent a clinical questionnaire to 183 pediatric hospitals. The remaining one-sixth (16.7 percent) derived from three years' of responses to an annual survey of 150 pediatric specialists and subspecialists in each specialty. The physicians were asked where they would send the sickest children in their specialty, setting aside location and expense.

Survival rates, adequacy of nurse staffing and procedure volume are among the many kinds of information about each ranked hospital that can be viewed on http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/pediatric-rankings. The rankings will be published in the U.S. News "Best Hospitals 2015" guidebook (ISBN 978-1-931469-64-7), which will be available in August.

For an explanation of the 2014-15 results, please visit our FAQ.

RTI International, a North Carolina research organization that contracts with U.S. News to produce the Best Hospitals rankings, created the Best Children's Hospitals methodology, produced the 2014-15 rankings and administered the hospital and physician surveys. The hospital survey was designed with the help of 103 medical directors, pediatric specialists, and other experts organized by RTI into working groups.

Developed exclusively by U.S. News & World Report's Health Care Analysis team, the Best Children's Hospitals rankings are part of the U.S. News mission to provide trusted information and rankings that help Americans navigate complex health care issues, from finding hospitals and doctors to health insurance and nursing homes.

About U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is a multi-platform publisher of news and analysis, which includes the digital-only U.S. News Weekly magazine, www.usnews.com and www.rankingsandreviews.com. Focusing on Health, Personal Finance, Education, Travel, Cars and Public Service/Opinion, U.S. News has earned a reputation as the leading provider of service news and information that improves the quality of life of its readers. U.S. News & World Report's signature franchise includes its News You Can Use® brand of journalism and its annual "Best" series of consumer Web guides and publications that include rankings of colleges, graduate schools, hospitals, mutual funds, health plans and more.

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SOURCE U.S. News & World Report