Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Rush University Medical Center are again neck-and-neck in U.S. News & World Report hospital ratings — with both ranking among the top 20 hospitals in the nation and tying for best hospital in Illinois.
Northwestern and Rush were the only Illinois hospitals to be listed among the top 20 in the country this year by U.S. News & World Report.
This is the third time Northwestern and Rush have been tied for first place in the state, after Northwestern held that spot on its own for more than a decade.
The publication ranked University of Chicago Medical Center as the third best hospital in Illinois, Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn fourth, and Endeavor Health’s four north suburban hospitals in Glenview, Evanston, Skokie and Highland Park, as a group, fifth.
Chicago’s Shirley Ryan AbilityLab was again named as the No. 1 hospital for rehabilitation in the country, for the 35th consecutive year.
U.S. News & World Report releases its list of best hospitals in the country annually. High-performing hospitals often pay close attention to their U.S. News & World Report rankings, touting their performance in advertising aimed at attracting more patients in the competitive Chicago area health care market.
This year, U.S. News & World Report ranked 504 hospitals among the best in their regions after looking at the performance of 4,400 hospitals across the country. U.S. News ranks hospitals based on data, including death rates, preventable complications and levels of nursing care.
The publication also ranks hospital specialties. Northwestern Memorial Hospital ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country for cardiology, heart and vascular surgery; diabetes and endocrinology; gastroenterology and GI surgery; geriatrics; neurology and neurosurgery; obstetrics and gynecology; pulmonology and lung surgery; and urology. Rush specialities ranking among the top 10 in the country include geriatrics and neurology and neurosurgery.
U.S. News & World Report is one of a number of organizations that rank and rate hospitals each year, each using different methodology.
Critics of hospital ranking systems say they don’t paint a full picture of individual hospitals’ capabilities and challenges. Earlier this year, five Tenet Healthcare hospitals sued a different hospital ratings organization called the Leapfrog Group after its hospitals earned low safety grades, according to the Miami Herald.
The Leapfrog Group awards hospitals letter grades twice a year based on patient safety. Another ratings system out of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issues one to five stars to hospitals based on quality.
Northwestern and Rush also perform well in those ratings systems, earning As in Leapfrog’s most recent grades and five out of five stars from CMS. University of Chicago Medical Center is one of only three hospitals in Illinois that’s earned straight As from Leapfrog since Leapfrog started grading hospitals, but it earned three out of five stars from CMS.
Health care leaders say consumers should use hospital ratings as just one tool when considering where to seek care.
“There’s really no perfect ratings and ranking system out there, so I think consumers have to be aware to not use any single rating or ranking (to make a decision), but I think, again, when you look across ratings and rankings, Leapfrog, CMS star, and this, I think that really starts to paint a picture of what are the hospitals and sites of care you can truly trust,” said Dr. Paul Casey, senior vice president and chief medical officer for Rush.
Rounding out the top 10 hospitals in Illinois, according to U.S. News & World Report, were Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge in sixth place; Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield in seventh; Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital in eighth; Endeavor Health Edward Hospital in Naperville in ninth; and Northwestern’s hospitals in Huntley, Woodstock and McHenry in 10th, as a group.
