Geneva Hospital Among Best In U.S. In New Forbes Ranking

GENEVA, IL — Forbes unveiled its first-ever Top Hospitals List and Rankings for 2026 on Thursday, including 28 Illinois hospitals among the best in the U.S.

Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva was listed among them, receiving an overall ranking of five stars, putting it in the 91st to 100th percentile.

Ascension Saint Joseph-Chicago was ranked at the top of the list of best hospitals in Illinois, with an overall five-star ranking. The hospital has a five-star ranking for outcomes, a four-star ranking for best practices, a three-star ranking for value and a three-star ranking for patient experience.

"Navigating the healthcare system can be daunting. Managing referrals, red tape, complicated treatment protocols and increasing costs become all the more overwhelming when people are at their most vulnerable—facing illness, long-term conditions, or injuries," Forbes senior editor Rachel Rabkin Peachman said.

For its inaugural report, Forbes evaluated nearly 5,400 general acute care hospitals listed in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Provider Data Catalog based on their performance across 56 reported hospital quality measures.

The 56 selected measures were grouped into four categories with different weights: outcomes (55 percent of the weight), best practices (20 percent), value (15 percent) and patient experience (10 percent).

To produce the Forbes Top Hospitals rating system, researchers enlisted healthcare measurement experts, including an advisory panel comprised of clinicians, scientists, health policy researchers, and patient advocates. The magazine also partnered with Inovalon, a healthcare data and analytics firm, to calculate the ratings.

The outcomes were statistically adjusted for social drivers of health, such as socioeconomic and access to medical services.

The ratings were then calculated, and out of 4,601 eligible hospitals, 253 hospitals received an overall rating of five stars, and 509 hospitals received an overall rating of four stars. The stars represented the following percentiles:

1. One star: 1st to 10th percentile
2. Two stars: 11th to 30th percentile
3. Three stars: 31st to 70th percentile
4. Four stars: 71st to 90th percentile
5. Five stars: 91st to 100th percentile