U.S. News ranks Northwestern, Rush hospitals among top 20 in the country

Chicago Tribune (IL)

Chicago can again count two of its hospitals — Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Rush University Medical Center — among the top 20 in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report rankings released Tuesday.

Northwestern took top honors as the best hospital in Illinois for the 10th consecutive year and 10th in the country for the third year. Rush was ranked second in Illinois and 19th in the country, down slightly from 17th last year.

Other Illinois hospitals that ranked highly in Illinois but didn’t make the national top-20 list include: University of Chicago Medical Center, which ranked third in the state; Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, which ranked fourth; and Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, which ranked fifth.

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Streeterville ranked as the top hospital for rehabilitation in the country, for the 31st consecutive time.

U.S. News ranked hospitals on factors including survival and readmission rates, patient experience, patient safety and nurse staffing. Much of the data is from Medicare. The COVID-19 pandemic did not affect the hospitals’ rankings, because the data upon which they were based was from before COVID-19.

Northwestern Memorial HealthCare President and CEO Dean Harrison credited the hospital’s success, in a news release, to its health care workers “who responded with compassion and commitment to providing world-class care to our patients during a global pandemic.”

Rush’s staff also rose to and overcame the pandemic’s challenges, said Dr. Omar Lateef, president and CEO, in a statement. He called all health care workers heroes “regardless of rankings.”

Hospitals keep a close eye on their rankings each year, often using good ones in their advertising to try to attract more patients as they compete with other area hospitals.

Many different organizations rate hospitals, and they all use different methodologies, often leading to different results.

For example, the nonprofit Leapfrog Group, which grades hospitals twice a year, most recently gave Northwestern Memorial a grade of B and Rush a grade of A for safety. Under a different federal ratings system, Rush and Northwestern most recently received five out of five stars for quality.

Experts caution that patients should use rankings as just one piece of information when deciding where to seek care. Patients should also consider advice from their doctors, which hospitals are in-network with their health insurance plans and how a hospital ranks in the specific procedure or specialty a patient may need.

U.S. News also ranked hospitals in 16 specialties, including cardiology and heart surgery, orthopedics and cancer. For 12 of those specialties, U.S. News ranked hospitals based largely on data, while in four of them — ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation and rheumatology — results were based on expert opinions gathered through surveys of physicians.

Northwestern ranked among the top 50 hospitals in the nation in 10 specialties, including sixth in the country for cancer and eighth for geriatrics. Rush ranked among the top 50 hospitals in the country in nine specialties, including third for neurology and neurosurgery and sixth for orthopedics.

For the first time this year, U.S. News also rated hospitals on health equity — including the percentages of patients of color who had elective procedures at each hospital, compared to their presence in the surrounding communities.

Of the top three hospitals in Illinois, Northwestern Memorial performed the worst, with U.S. News finding that the proportion of non-white patients who received elective care there was 45% to 75% lower than their proportion of the population in surrounding communities. Rush did a little better, with its proportion of non-white patients hovering between 15% and 45% lower than in the community. University of Chicago Medical Center did the best of the three, with its proportion within 15% of the community or higher.

Overall, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota was named the top hospital in the country, followed by the Cleveland Clinic and UCLA Medical Center.