Eleventh Annual Hospital Ranking

NEW YORK--U.S. News & World Report has issued their eleventh annual edition of America's Best Hospitals covering seventeen specialties. Starting with 6,247 institutions, the magazine whittled down the list using a variety of criteria. All hospitals had to be a member of the Council of Teaching Hospitals, be affiliated with a medical school, or offer at least nine of the pre-selected specialty services. Hospitals also had to perform a certain number of defined procedures over three years. The last group of criteria included reputation score, mortality rates, and other American Hospital Association (AHA) survey data. For reputation score, the magazine randomly chose 150 board-certified specialists to name the five hospitals they considered the best in their specialty, regardless of location and expense. The number is a percentage based on physician recommendations in U.S. News surveys over the past three years. Mortality rates compared actual deaths with forecasted deaths, factoring in the condition of the patient. The third component, survey data, covered elements such as technology services and nursing care.

Some specialties--eyes, pediatrics, psychiatry, and rehabilitation--were ranked solely by reputation because the other data was nonexistent or irrelevant. To be listed in this category, a hospital had to be named by at least 3% of the physicians who responded to surveys in 1998, 1999, and 2000.

The seventeen specialties and the top ranked hospital in that category are as follows:

Cancer - University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Tex.

Cardiology - Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio

Digestive Disorders - Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Ear, Nose, and Throat - Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md.

Eyes - Johns Hopkins Hospital (Wilmer Eye Institute), Baltimore, Md.

Geriatrics - UCLA, Medical Center, Los Angeles, Calif.

Gynecology - Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md.

Hormonal Disorders - Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Kidney Disease - Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Mass.

Neurology and Neurosurgery - Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Orthopedics - Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Pediatrics - Children's Hospital, Boston, Mass.

Psychiatry - Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass.

Rehabilitation - Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Ill.

Respiratory Disorders - National Jewish Center, Denver, Colo.

Rheumatology - Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Urology - Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md.

For a complete list of hospital rankings, please visit the US News Web site at www.usnews.com