U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals List Shifts Methodology

The magazine's annual list is released just a few weeks after Consumer Reports released its first annual survey of hospitals factoring in data or care practices indicating how likely a patient might be to suffer avoidable harm caused by the hospital. 

That list came after the release by the Leapfrog Group on June 5 of its 26-metric patient safety scorecard.  Those scoring systems, however, rated only factors related to safety, and not to overall quality of care or reputation.

The top 17 hospitals ranked near the top in six or more specialty rankings:
1. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
2. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
3. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
4. Cleveland Clinic
5. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
6. Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis
7. New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell, NY
8. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
9. Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston
10. UPMC–University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. 
11. NYU Langone Medical Center, NY
12. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago
13. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco
14. Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York
15. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
16. Indiana University Health, Indianapolis
17. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor