Mayo Clinic Again Tops U.S. News Best Hospitals List

For the fifth year in a row, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has taken the top spot in the U.S. News & World Report‘s Best Hospitals annual rankings.

For the 2020-2021 edition, the Cleveland Clinic claimed the second slot, up from number four last year, and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore remained at number three.

Tied for fourth place were NewYork-Presbyterian (the hospital system of Columbia and Cornell universities) in New York City and UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, which were fifth and sixth, respectively, in last year’s rankings.

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which took second place last year, fell to sixth place.

UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside in Pittsburgh and Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut dropped out of the Top 20, which U.S. News refers to as “The Honor Roll,” to make room for Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

U.S. News said the rankings were not affected by the pandemic’s impact on hospitals, as the data used for its evaluation were obtained before COVID-19 hit. The news outlet did develop a special profile series of more than 65 healthcare workers from across the country, along with commentary from top hospital executives, to honor the efforts of healthcare personnel during the pandemic.

This is the 31st edition of the Best Hospitals rankings, which began in 1990. This year’s edition compares more than 4,500 medical centers across the country in 16 specialties and 10 procedures and conditions.

Methodology underpinning the report is based largely on objective measures such as risk-adjusted survival and discharge-to-home rates, volume, quality of nursing care, and other care-related indicators, according to U.S. News. The rankings were produced in partnership with RTI International, a research group based in Triangle Park, North Carolina.

The full “Honor Roll” rankings are below, as are abbreviated rankings for two specialty areas: cancer and cardiology.

Best Hospitals “Honor Roll”

1. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

2. Cleveland Clinic

3. Johns Hopkins Hospital

4. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital ​(tie)

5. UCLA Medical Center​ (tie)

6. Massachusetts General Hospital

7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

8. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco

9. NYU Langone Hospitals, New York

10. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

11. University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor

12. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston

13. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, California

14. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York

15. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia

16. Mayo Clinic-Phoenix

17. Rush University Medical Center

18. Barnes-Jewish Hospital ​(tie)

19. Keck Medical Center of USC, Los Angeles ​(tie)

20. Houston Methodist Hospital

Cancer

1. University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston

2. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City

3. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

4. Johns Hopkins Hospital

5. Cleveland Clinic

6. Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, Boston

7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

8. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

9. Seattle Cancer Care Alliance/University of Washington Medical Center

10. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco

Cardiology & Heart Surgery (U.S. News developed a new cardiac rating to include transcatheter aortic valve replacement [TAVR] quality)

1. Cleveland Clinic

2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

3. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

4. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell

5. Massachusetts General Hospital

6. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City

7. Brigham and Women’s Hospital (tie)

8. UCLA Medical Center (tie)

9. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital

10. Northwestern Memorial Hospital