U.S. News & World Report 'Best Children's Hospitals' Ranking Released

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.-U.S. News & World Report today released the 2013-14 Best Children's Hospitals rankings of America's top pediatric facilities. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was listed at the top of the 2013-14 Honor Roll, which recognizes excellence across 10 specialty areas.

Data for the annual rankings were collected and analyzed by RTI International. RTI created a methodology specifically for U.S. News, which surveys pediatric physicians and children's hospitals.

The rankings include the top 50 U.S. hospitals and reflect the quality of care in each of these specialties: cardiology and heart surgery, cancer, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and GI surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology.

Researchers analyzed data from patient outcomes, physician surveys, and structural resources of each hospital to determine the rankings. The data included a clinical questionnaire sent to 179 pediatric hospitals, and a survey of 150 pediatric specialists in each of the 10 ranked specialties.

In the 2013-14 report, 87 hospitals were ranked in at least one specialty and 10 ranked high enough in at least three specialties to be named in the honor roll.

U.S. News & World Report began the Best Children's Hospitals rankings in 2007 to recognize the best hospital facilities for pediatric patients. A total of 179 U.S. pediatric hospitals were eligible for the rankings this year. Those eligible included freestanding pediatric hospitals, pediatric departments within a larger medical center, and pediatric specialty facilities.

The 2013-14 edition of the Best Children's Hospitals and the full methodology are available at the U.S. News & World Report Website. More quality-related information for individual pediatric hospitals can be found at here.

More information on RTI's role is available at www.rti.org/besthospitals.