Top 10 Children’s Hospitals in the Country

Seventy-eight hospitals rank amongst the best in the country to treat children during times of severe illness, however, there is an even more select list that highlights the eleven pediatric hospitals that are among the top facilities for treating multiple children’s specialties.

That list is U.S. News and World Report’s Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll 2018-2019.

** denotes a tie

How Points Are Awarded

The 2018-2019 Best Children’s Hospital Honor Roll list is formed through the combined efforts of clinical survey data and reputational surveys sent to pediatric specialist and subspecialists.

Before finding a spot on the Honor Roll, however, these results must first rank the top children’s hospitals by specialties (cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology. It is from these individual top specialty rankings (and more) that top ranking children’s hospitals can then move onto securing a spot on the Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll.

Scoring a position on this best children’s hospitals list required that a hospital rank among the top 10% of hospitals in three or more specialties (of the above ten specialities). After that, points were awarded and totaled as follows:

• Hospitals that ranked among the top 5% in a specialty received 2 points
• Hospitals that ranked among the top 6-10% in a specialty received 1 point

(Any ties in points were broken by the number of ranked specialties)

Other Scoring Considerations

1. Qualifying and ranking as one of the best pediatric hospitals in the nation required that hospitals perform well in clinical outcomes, efficient coordination of care and “best practices,” and sufficient care-related resources for particular conditions. These aspects contributed to one-third of each hospital’s total score.
2. Three years worth of pediatric specialty physicians surveys — on their choice of the top 10 pediatric hospitals for severe cases of their specialty — made up 15% of each hospital’s total score.

A full Children’s Hospitals Methodology Report will explain more about how the data was analyzed, and more information on how and why U.S. News and World Report creates these lists can be found here. To see the full lists of children’s hospitals that ranked for specific specialties, visit U.S. News and World Report’s Pediatric Hospital Rankings by Specialty.

For top-ranking hospitals in adult specialty care, check out the Top 20 Hospitals Honor Roll for 2018-2019.