Best Children’s Hospitals 2017: 3 Missouri Facilities Make U.S News Rankings

U.S. News and World Report released its annual rankings of the best children’s hospitals in the country, highlighting hospitals across 10 pediatric specialties. The rankings also looked at the best children’s hospitals by state and identified 10 hospitals that made it onto the honor roll, which are hospitals that deliver high quality care across many specialities.

Three Missouri hospitals — Children's Mercy Kansas City, St. Louis Children's Hospital-Washington University and SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis — made the best children’s hospitals rankings. Children's Mercy and St. Louis Children's Hospital were ranked across all 10 specialties while SSM Health was ranked across three categories.

The ten pediatric specialities highlighted in the rankings are:

1. Cancer
2. Cardiology and Heart Surgery
3. Diabetes and Endocrinology
4. Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Surgery
5. Neonatology
6. Nephrology
7. Neurology and Neurosurgery
8. Orthopedics
9. Pulmonology
10. Urology

Children's Mercy Kansas City ranked 42 for cancer, 19 for cardiology and heart surgery, 33 for diabetes and endocrinology, 25 for gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery, 24 for neonatology, 7 for nephrology, 31 for neurology and neurosurgery, 28 for orthopedics, 46 for pulmonology and 20 for urology.

St. Louis Children's Hospital ranked 32 for cancer, 31 for cardiology and heart surgery, 32 for diabetes and endocrinology, 15 for gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery, 18 for neonatology, 18 for nephrology, 7 for neurology and neurosurgery, 25 for orthopedics, 8 for pulmonology and 14 for urology.

SSM Health was ranked 45 for cardiology and heart surgery, 44 for gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery and 48 for nephrology.

>>>>Click here to see the top hospitals across every speciality.

The hospitals that made U.S. News’ honor roll are:

1. Boston Children’s Hospital
2. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
3. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
4. Texas Children’s Hospital
5. Johns Hopkins Children’s Center
6. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
7. Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
7. Nationwide Children’s Hospital
9. Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
10. Children’s National Medical Center

U.S. News’ methodology includes measures such as clinical outcomes, patient volume, infection control and more. For all 10 categories, except cardiology and heart surgery, a third of the hospital’s score was tied to outcomes such as survival, infections and surgical complications. For cardiology and heart surgery, outcomes account for 38.3 percent of the score. More than 50 percent of the score was based on metrics for each hospital’s commitment to patient safety and the remainder of the score rested on a survey of pediatricians in the various specialties.

For the 2017-18 rankings, 113 hospitals turned over enough data to U.S. News to be evaluated in at least one specialty and 82 of those hospitals were ranked in one or more. Only the 50 top scoring hospitals across each specialty are ranked numerically.

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