Emory University Hospital is the best in Georgia, with three other Atlanta facilities ranked in the top five and one other in the top 10, according to U.S. News and World Report.
The news outlet assessed 172 Georgia hospitals this year, ranking them across a variety of metrics.
Emory St. Joseph’s, Piedmont Atlanta and Northside Atlanta finished out the top four, with Gainesville’s Northeast Georgia Medical Center coming in at No. 5. Four Emory hospitals and four Northside hospitals, both Atlanta-based health care systems, made it within the top 12.
“U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals rankings are a testament to the unmatched high-quality, compassionate care our clinicians provide to our patients, their families and our community,” Joon S. Lee, MD, CEO of Emory Healthcare, said in a news release. “Congratulations and thank you to our team members who have continually helped us reach these achievements and successes.”
To determine the rankings, the hospitals were broken down into two parts: specialty rankings and procedure/condition ratings.
“The Best Hospitals specialty rankings are meant for patients with life-threatening or rare conditions who need a hospital that excels in treating complex, high-risk cases,” the news outlet explained. “These rankings are helpful if you’re looking for information about a rare condition or difficult diagnosis that isn’t treated at many facilities. Hospitals are ranked from 1 to 50 in each specialty, with hospitals not in the top 50 but still in the top 10% of all rated hospitals receiving a designation of ‘high performing.’”
The procedure/condition ratings, meanwhile, are dedicated to patients with more common treatments.
“The Best Hospitals procedure and condition ratings focus on specific and more commonly required individual procedures and conditions, such as hip replacement and heart failure, rather than on broader specialties like orthopedics and cardiology,” the outlet said. “The goal is to evaluate how well hospitals perform in each procedure or condition — not just with the most challenging cases, as with the specialty rankings, but with the full range of patients.”
The nation’s highest ranked hospitals rise to the top because of their overall performance in these categories.
