Hospital In HV Named Among 'Best' For Maternity Care In New Report

NYACK, NY — One hospital in the Hudson Valley made the top grade in a new ranking of the Best Hospitals for Maternity Care for 2023-24 released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report — Montefiore Nyack Hospital.

The ranking of 680 hospitals nationwide is a guide for parents making one of the most important decisions of their lives — where their baby will be born. Each hospital participating in the U.S. News survey received a scorecard describing their performance on a checklist of items parents look for when choosing where to have their baby.

"To date, Montefiore Nyack Hospital has welcomed more than 1,300 babies in 2023, giving them the best start in life with excellent maternity care," said Anthony Matejicka, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Montefiore Nyack Hospital. "This distinction shows our commitment to providing expectant parents with safe and equitable patient experiences. We take this responsibility very seriously as it is a privilege to serve our communities in this capacity."

Jennifer Winston, a health data scientist for U.S. News, said the top hospitals in the survey are those with a “high performing” designation for care given to patients with uncomplicated pregnancies. These hospitals had Cesarean Section rates of 26 percent or lower and newborn complication rates of 37 percent or lower, Winston explained in a news release.

Of the 40 New York hospitals that participated in the U.S. News maternity services survey, eight received the high performing designation:

• Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca
• Glens Falls Hospital
• Mercy Hospital-Buffalo
• Montefiore Nyack Hospital
• Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital
• New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital
• NYU Langone Hospitals
• St. Joseph's Health Hospital in Syracuse

Montefiore Nyack Hospital is a 391-bed community acute care medical and surgical hospital that
was founded in 1895. It is a member of Montefiore Health System and a partner with Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, Check out its rating from U.S. News here.

"This honor highlights the expertise and ongoing commitment of our dedicated nurses, affiliated physicians and support staff at The Jacobs Family Maternity Center," said Maria Emerson, MD, FACOG, Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Montefiore Nyack Hospital. "We are extremely proud to have earned this prestigious recognition and will continue to work together on providing the highest-quality, patient-centered maternity care to the expectant patients of Rockland County."

Other hospitals in the Hudson Valley that completed the U.S. News survey, but did not rank as “high performing” were:

• White Plains Hospital
• Vassar Brothers Medical Center
• Putnam Hospital
• Phelps Memorial Hospital Center at Northwell Health
• Northern Westchester Hospital at Northwell Health
• Northern Dutchess Hospital
• New York-Presbyterian-Hudson Valley Hospital

New to the rankings this year is the inaugural “Maternity Care Access Hospitals” list, which highlights 73 hospitals providing services in what otherwise would be maternity care deserts that have “left millions of people without local access to maternity care” in some parts of the country, Winston said.

In New York, two upstate medical centers were on that list: Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown and Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca.

The hospitals are ranked on objective measures of quality. Including C-section rate, lower-risk pregnancies, newborn complication rates, exclusive breast milk feeding rates, early elective delivery rates, birthing-friendly practices and transparency on racial/ethnic disparities, among other measures. Read more about the methodology.