Healthgrades releases state rankings, and gives four hospitals top honors

In Healthgrades’ latest ranking of hospital performance, four hospitals have earned special recognition.

Healthgrades released its 2022 State Rankings, which is designed to let consumers find out the hospitals delivering the best care in (or near) their communities. Healthgrades, which produces a host of other reports, including an annual evaluation of America’s best hospitals, released the list Tuesday.

For its 2022 State Rankings, Healthgrades looked at nearly 4,500 hospitals and examined eight key specialty areas: Cardiac surgery, coronary intervention procedures, critical care, joint replacement, prostate surgery, pulmonary care, spine surgery and stroke care.

Healthgrades recognized 431 top hospitals in 34 states in its new rankings.

However, four hospitals stood out for being ranked #1 in at least three of those key specialty areas in their states. These are the hospitals:

AdventHealth, Orlando, Fla., ranked first in coronary intervention, critical care and stroke care.

Deaconess Hospital, Evansville, Ind., ranked at the top in critical care, pulmonary care, and stroke care.

Great River Medical Center, West Burlington, Iowa, finished first in critical care, pulmonary care, and stroke care.

NYU Langone Health Tisch Hospital; New York, N.Y., ranked first in critical care, pulmonary care, and stroke care.

Brad Bowman, chief medical officer and head of data science for Healthgrades, said the rankings are designed to make more informed decisions for their health.

"Our State Rankings provide consumers with increased transparency regarding the care in their areas, and empowers them to make more confident care decisions for themselves and their families,” Bowman said in a statement. This year's list encompasses the best of the best in terms of continued commitment to top quality care, and a proven track record delivering positive outcomes for their patients."

Healthgrades examined clinical outcomes in each of these areas, including mortality or complications from the procedures. The organization looked at data submitted to Medicare from 2018 through 2020 and looked at outcomes for Medicare patients.

Some states weren’t eligible for the state rankings under Healthgrades’ criteria. For a state to be considered, states with six or fewer hospitals that met the standards in an individual award area were not eligible for the rankings in that area.

Healthgrades also recognized hospitals for their strong healthcare in 17 different specialty areas. They received Healthgrades Specialty Excellence Awards.

Earlier this year, Healthgrades also did a new report looking at the hospitals and health systems that excelled during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In that list, Healthgrades recognized 24 hospitals for delivering top-notch care to a high volume of COVID-19 patients.