US News released their Honor Roll earlier this week and announced the best hospitals in the United States. Planning and execution has gotten these hospitals to be listed in lists, not just from US News, but in other lists as well.
It is no surprise that as a whole and individual breakdowns by specialty, Mayo Clinic came in at number 1. In early June, Mayo announced a plan to double their research capacity in Rochester, MN with a 2 million square foot bioresearch facility. The completed project is expected to open in 2019.
Mentioned in several of the breakdown lists was Cleveland Clinic, which ranked in at number 2 on the overall Honor Roll list. Cleveland Clinic received top spots in Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Diabetes & Endocrinology, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Gynecology, Nephrology, Orthopedics, Pulmonology, Rheumatology, and Urology. 2016 has certainly been a busy year for Cleveland, having agreed to integrate Akron General Health System into their own, and having partnered with CVS to leverage mobile telehealth technology.
At number 3, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA scored high their Diabetes & Endocrinology, Ear Nose & Throat, and Psychiatry departments.
Johns Hopkins Hospital in the city of Baltimore won the 4th spot in the Honor Roll and had honorable mentions for their Ear, Nose & Throat, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Ophthalmology, and Rheumatology departments. Although they announced a possible data breach in October of 2015, they have recently completed initiatives in their IT department to bring equipment up to date by deploying over 1,000 workstations, scanners, and Zebra and HP laser-jet printers.
Listed at number 5 on the overall list but in the top three for their Geriatrics and Urology departments was UCLA Health. Having successfully recovered from a breach in their medical records from a stolen laptop back in September of 2015, UCLA has managed to keep their IT projects moving forward. In April of this year, they announced their plans to develop a platform to integrate Epic with Salesforce and began their hunt for the project’s analysts shortly after.
Consumers looked at different criteria while ranking the hospitals. Every year, consumer reports help add to the list of criteria to be looked at. With the limitations in health insurance plans, this year, further research was done to these hospitals by looking whether they service lung cancer surgery and aortic valve surgery. What will next year’s list include? The advances in the top 5 of this year’s is a great example how consumer and employer opinion help create a better business plan for overall success.
According to Michael Williams, CEO at Global Healthcare IT, Inc. “These types of lists are invaluable. Consumers want to know that they are going to a good hospital, where practical. With more data coming available through the EMR systems, more ranking should be visible to the public. Eventually, better run, more efficient hospitals will emerge through these lists. As they build up their competitive advantage, the likelihood is they will begin swallowing up their competitors, or simply take their market share”. Michael added “Interestingly for us, 3 of the top five best hospitals are active clients of Global Healthcare IT. A positive re-enforcement that we continue to supply top quality healthcare IT talent”.
