Boston Children's Hospital ranked No. 1 by U.S News & World Report

Ben Harder*

Boston Children’s Hospital has been named the nation’s top pediatric hospital for the fifth consecutive year, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The 2018-2019 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings highlight 50 centers in each of 10 pediatric specialties, including cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology.

Boston Children’s Hospital also ranked No. 1 in three of 10 pediatric specialties: neurology and neurosurgery, nephrology and orthopedics. Other hospitals with No. 1 rankings in the 10 specialties included Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in cancer, gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery; Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in diabetes and endocrinology, and urology; Texas Children’s Hospital in cardiology and heart surgery, and pulmonology; and Children’s National Medical Center in neonatology.

Boston Children’s Hospital ranked No.1 in the publication’s “honor roll,” for “pediatric centers that deliver exceptionally high-quality care across multiple specialties.” Other hospitals in the top 10 honor roll were:

2. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

3. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

4. Texas Children’s Hospital

5. Children’s National Medical Center

6. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

7. Nationwide Children’s Hospital

8. Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital

9. Children’s Hospital Colorado

10. Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

“Relatively few children, compared with the number of adults, face life-threatening or rare conditions or have to go through complicated operations,” Ben Harder, chief of health analysis for U.S. News, told Infectious Diseases in Children. “But a child who does needs a caliber of expertise that a typical hospital, where nearly all inpatients are adults, simply cannot provide. Even a hospital with a busy maternity unit may not be equipped to deal with a newborn who weighs just a few pounds. That is why in 2006, U.S. News began collecting data that would allow ranking of pediatric centers on their ability to help children who need it the most.”

Patient outcomes, including mortality and infection rates, clinical resources and best practice compliances were used to compile the listings, according to a press release. Data from children’s hospitals were analyzed by RTI International, a North Carolina-based research and consulting firm.

There were 189 hospitals that qualified for inclusion in the rankings and were surveyed, with 118 — or 62.4% — submitting sufficient data through the Pediatric Hospital Survey to be considered for rankings, according to U.S. News.

“To evaluate each hospital, we look at hundreds of factors — from the strength of the medical team it has in place, to how well its young patients have fared after treatment,” Harder said. “We boil down all that information to 10 simple rankings per hospital — one for each of the 10 medical specialties we evaluate. So, whether a child has cancer, was born with a heart defect or needs neonatal intensive care, parents can find our ranking of top hospitals in the relevant specialty at usnews.com/hospitals.” – by Bruce Thiel

Disclosure: Harder works for U.S. News & World Report.

* Photo courtesy of U.S. News & World Report.