U.S. News & World Report released 'Best Children's Hospitals' ranking

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — U.S. News & World Report today released the 2015-16 Best Children's Hospitals rankings of America's top pediatric facilities. Boston Children's Hospital received the top position on the 2015-16 Honor Roll, which recognizes excellence across 10 specialty areas.

RTI International collected and analyzed data for the annual rankings, and 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: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, 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 184 pediatric hospitals, and surveys of 11,000 pediatric specialists over three years across the 10 ranked specialties.

In the 2015-16 report, 83 hospitals were ranked in at least one specialty and 12 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 184 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 2015-16 edition of the Best Children's Hospitals and the full methodology are available at the U.S. News & World Report website. Find quality-related information for individual pediatric hospitals here.

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