Phoenix Children’s Hospital announced the organization is again ranked by U.S. News & World Report’s Best Children’s Hospitals in 10 out of 10 specialties. The health system remains Arizona’s only children’s hospital to be recognized by U.S. News & World Report and is one of only 24 children’s hospitals in the United States to make the list in all 10 surveyed specialties for 2019-20.
“These rankings help guide patient families to make the best medical care decisions,” said Robert L. Meyer, President and CEO of Phoenix Children’s. “Staff at Phoenix Children’s hold themselves accountable to every patient we serve. As part of this, we report clinical data to U.S. News as well as other public databases that evaluate our outcomes and quality on a high standard among our peers nationwide.”
U.S. News & World Report’s national publication annually ranks children’s hospitals for their clinical expertise and patient outcomes in 10 medical specialties (listed below). This is the ninth consecutive year Phoenix Children’s was named a U.S. News & World Report Best Children’s Hospital and the third time Phoenix Children’s received top rankings in all 10 areas. Out of 192 children’s hospitals, this year only 84 hospitals were ranked in at least one of the pediatric specialties.
• Cancer, #35, represented by the Phoenix Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders
• Cardiology and Heart Surgery, #14 represented by Phoenix Children’s Heart Center
• Diabetes and Endocrinology, #50
• Gastroenterology and GI Surgery, #32
• Neonatology, #27
• Nephrology, #32
• Neurology and Neurosurgery, #38, represented by Barrow Neurological Institute at Phoenix Children’s
• Orthopedics, #39, represented by the Herbert J. Louis Center for Pediatric Orthopedics and Sports Medicine
• Pulmonology, #40
• Urology, #41
U.S. News & World Report scores reflect patient outcomes and care-related resources hospitals make available. In addition to the U.S. News & World Report Best Children’s Hospital database, Phoenix Children’s reports its clinical data to several national watchdog organizations including The Leapfrog Group, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) Network.
At the end of 2018, Phoenix Children’s was one of only 13 children’s hospitals to earn a “Top Children’s Hospital” distinction from The Leapfrog Group for its achievements in patient safety and quality. In June 2019, for the sixth consecutive year, Phoenix Children’s received a top “three stars” rating from STS for its higher-than-expected survival rates in pediatric cardiac surgery. SPS also named Phoenix Children’s as “Hospital of the Month” in May 2019 for its outstanding work in pediatric patient safety and low rates of hospital-acquired conditions.
The majority of each hospital’s U.S. News and World Report score reflects patient outcomes and care-related data. To gather this data, U.S. News sent a clinical questionnaire to nearly 200 pediatric hospitals nationwide. Each surveyed hospital also receives a reputation score that makes up a portion of its rankings. Reputation in each specialty is measured by a national survey of pediatric specialists and subspecialists who rate the top children’s hospitals in their specialty by indicating where they would send their sickest patients, location and expenses aside.
Survival rates, nurse staffing, procedural volume and more can be viewed on http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/pediatric-rankings and will be published in the U.S. News “Best Hospitals 2020” guidebook in August.
