Best Hospitals For Maternity Care: 43 PA Hospitals On U.S. News List

PENNSYLVANIA — A new ranking aims to sort hospitals across the nation by their ability to provide top notch maternity care. The 2022-23 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals for Maternity Care compiled nearly 650 facilities in its ranking, inculding several in Pennsylvania.

Of the 43 Pennsylvania hospitals that provide labor and delivery services and participated in the U.S. News survey, 20 received the “high performing” designation, the highest a hospital can receive for maternity care. Those hospitals are listed below:

• Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian
• Lancaster General
• St. Luke's University Hospital, Bethlehem
• UPMC Harrisburg
• Pennsylvania Hospital
• Main Line Health Bryn Mawr Hospital
• Chester County Hospital
• Jefferson Health-Abington Hospital
• WellSpan York
• Einstein Montgomery
• Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital
• Geisinger-Bloomsburg Hospital
• Geisinger Lewistown Hospital
• Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center
• Main Line Health Riddle
• St. Luke's Anderson Campus
• St. Vincent Hospital Erie
• UPMC Magee-Women's Hospital
• UPMC Williamsport
• WellSpan Good Samaritan

Each hospital participating in the survey received a scorecard describing their performance on a checklist of items parents look for when choosing where to have their baby.

U.S. News said relatively little information is readily available to the public about which hospitals are best at caring for expectant parents after an uncomplicated pregnancy.

The ranking differs from other hospital rankings in an important way: The patients at maternity hospitals are younger, so the data used in the rankings was collected individually from the hospitals, rather than through required Medicare reports.

The rankings are based on C-section rates in lower-risk pregnancies, newborn complication rates, exclusive breast milk feeding rates and early elective delivery rates, among other factors.

This year for the first time as part of its methodology, U.S. News considered rates of episiotomy procedures (a small cut made at the vaginal opening to assist in difficult deliveries), rates of vaginal births of subsequent children after a Cesarean delivery, and whether hospitals met new federal criteria for “birthing-friendly” practices — a publicly reported, public-facing designation by the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity.

Also new this year, hospitals that tracked and reported their outcomes for patients of different races and ethnicities were rewarded in the rankings.

“Identifying racial disparities in maternity care is a vital step toward achieving health equity,” Min Hee Seo, senior health data scientist at U.S. News, said in a news release.

“The new measures provide expectant parents with many important data points, such as whether hospitals implemented patient safety practices, to assist them in making a decision about where to receive maternity care,” Seo said.