Healthgrades has announced the winners of the State Rankings and America’s Best Hospitals Awards for 2023.
The top 50 hospitals on their list correspond to the best 1% of US hospitals.
The website’s annual award gives a thorough look at healthcare options based on an evaluation of about 4,500 institutions and more than 31 of the most common illnesses and surgeries.
Finding the best medical assistance and care for you might be difficult. It could be challenging for some people to know who to contact for the best care.
Healthgrades, the best website for detailed information about doctors and hospitals, has announced the winners of its 2023 America’s Best Hospitals Awards and State Rankings, according to a news release.
The website’s annual list of the top hospitals in each state for specialty care and the national leaders in overall clinical excellence gives a thorough look at healthcare options based on a review of more than 31 of the most common illnesses and procedures and nearly 4,500 hospitals.
They only used MedPAR data from Medicare participants, which covered the three years from 2019 to 2021.
Healthgrades looked at the hospitals on their lists in 18 specialized areas to figure out which ones were the best in each of the 32 states that qualified.
America’s 50, 100, and 250 Best Hospitals are the top 1, 2, and 5% of hospitals in the country, respectively.
Dr. Brad Bowman, chief medical officer at Healthgrades, explained the significance of these rankings to Healthline by saying that knowing the “top 1, 2, and 5% of hospitals” in the U.S. “takes the guesswork out of making a decision that could have life-or-death repercussions.”
More than half of consumers are more concerned about the quality of treatment they receive today as a result of the pandemic, Bowman noted, so access to simple, objective indicators of hospital quality is becoming increasingly crucial to consumers. “Consumers who choose an America’s Best Hospital have a much higher likelihood of achieving a successful outcome across a spectrum of common ailments and procedures, from heart failure to joint replacement,” says the organization.
Indeed, between 2019 and 2021, 160,615 lives could have been saved if all hospitals performed at the same level as America’s top 250, he added.
How Healthgrades arrived at their list of the top 50 US hospitals
Healthgrades’ technique for identifying the 50 greatest hospitals in the US consisted of a three-pronged approach.
They started by examining which hospitals received the “250 Best Hospitals Award” this year, after which they counted how many years in a row each hospital had received the honor.
They then classified the hospitals’ volume-weighted z-scores for 2023 (which are the average across all complications and mortality-based cohorts) according to how many years in a row they have won the America’s 250 Best Award. These results serve as a statistical gauge of hospital quality.
Last but not least, Healthgrades examined hospitals that have won the America’s 250 Best Hospitals Award for at least 8 years running. The top 50 hospitals were determined using the most current volume-weighted z-score because more than 50 institutions have been on the list for at least 8 years.
Hospitals are dealing with more difficulties.
According to experts, the COVID-19 pandemic created a number of additional issues that were unanticipated before the commencement of the pandemic and increased fears and doubts among patients and healthcare professionals that already existed.
It has become extremely difficult for hospitals and providers as a result.
Leighton Ku, PhD, MPH, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management and the Director of the Center for Health Policy Research at the George Washington University, says that between 2020 and 2022, many pandemic-related problems put “substantial strains” on hospitals.
Ku, who is not associated with Healthgrades or the yearly rankings, said that “these obstacles were not carried equally.” New York hospitals were the first to be criticized in 2020, but more recently the effect has been seen in other regions of the country, frequently in more conservative places where people were less vaccinated and there were other societal issues (such as opioid usage, the “deaths of despair”).
According to Ku, there are many indications of social disparity across the nation “as poverty surged in many neighborhoods,” and lower immunization rates among minorities who also experienced “other care problems” exacerbated many of the strains on hospitals. He continued by stating that the COVID-19-related controversy has led to “growing mistrust of the healthcare system and public health safeguards” generally.
All of this, combined with the pandemic’s ongoing rage, created something of a perfect storm that made life difficult for healthcare professionals and patients trying to figure out where to go for their medical needs.
In the last couple of years, “there were certain noticeable aspects that relieved financial pressure on hospitals, but those are disappearing,” Ku added.
He emphasized how the federal government had already provided healthcare with significant financing, including the Provider Relief Fund and free COVID-19 services.
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He continued by saying that in 2020, Congress would increase federal funds for Medicaid support but also mandate that states avoid excluding Medicaid patients during pandemics.
“Due to this, Medicaid coverage significantly increased, and despite the economic downturn, the number of uninsured people actually decreased.” However, the Medicaid caseloads are about to “unwind” and the Provider Relief Fund is no longer distributing money, which will cause a significant rise in the number of people without insurance.
For many hospitals, especially safety-net and rural hospitals, “the combination of increasing financial pressures and diminishing federal funding will generate extra issues in 2023 and 2024,” he continued. Future federal and state policy decisions may have an impact on how successfully they are able to adapt.
In the years to come, a recession will probably bring even more difficulties, as hospitals will find it more difficult to borrow money and pay for restorations and operational upgrades due to rising interest rates.
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For his part, Bowman said that the “fallout from this season’s “tripledemic” of RSV, flu, and coronavirus has led to a mountain of stress for hospitals, in addition to staffing shortages, “dwindling financial margins,” etc.
These honors “highlight those hospitals that are overcoming the odds in this challenging environment,” according to Bowman.
By state, here are America’s 50 best hospitals:
Phoenix Mayo Clinic is located in Arizona.
West Hollywood’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California
Medical Center of Eden; Castro Valley
San Jose’s Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center
Santa Clara’s Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center
Burlingame’s Mills-Peninsula Medical Center
Northridge Medical Center; Northridge Hospital
Mission Hills; Providence Holy Cross Medical Center
Los Angeles’ Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
La Jolla’s Scripps Green Hospital
Health Services at Stanford
Roseville’s Sutter Roseville Medical Center
Santa Monica’s UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center
Colorado
Hospital at Poudre Valley; Fort Collins
Newark’s Delaware Christiana Hospital
Florida
Florida’s Mayo Clinic and Jacksonville
Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital in Georgia
Midtown Emory University Hospital, Atlanta
UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Alexian Brothers Medical Center, Illinois Amita Health
Urbana Carle Foundation Hospital
Kansas City, Kansas University of Kansas Hospital
Burlington, Massachusetts; Lahey Hospital and Medical Center
Baltimore’s MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center is in Maryland.
Southfield, Michigan’s Ascension Providence Hospital campus
Troy’s Beaumont Hospital
Minneapolis’ Abbott Northwestern Hospital
Rochester’s Saint Marys Campus of the Mayo Clinic
Mercy Medical Center, Coon Rapids
Asheville Mission Hospital in North Carolina
Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey; Morristown
Summit; Overlook Medical Center
New York City’s Lenox Hill Hospital
General Hospital in Rochester, New York
Hospital: Stony Brook University; Stony Brook
Poughkeepsie’s Vassar Brothers Medical Center
Cincinnati and Ohio’s Bethesda North Hospital
Fairfield’s Mercy Health-Fairfield Hospital
Cincinnati’s Mercy Health-West Hospital
Toledo’s ProMedica Toledo Hospital
Cincinnati’s Jewish Hospital, Mercy Health
Asheville Mission Hospital in North Carolina
Oregon \sProvidence Portland’s St. Vincent Medical Center
West Chester Hospital in Pennsylvania’s Chester County
Hospital General of Lancaster, Lancaster
Wynnewood; Lankenau Medical Center
West Reading and the Reading Hospital
Texas Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas
Kirkland, Washington’s Kirkland EvergreenHealth Medical Center
Vancouver’s Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center
Milwaukee’s Froedtert Hospital is in Wisconsin.
