The Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH) ranks number 1 among the nation’s best hospitals for cardiology and heart surgery for the 18th consecutive year, according to US News & World Report’s “America’s Best Hospitals,” published online July 17, 2012.

To evaluate hospitals in the cardiology field, US News’ ranking system is based on an overall score determined primarily by 4 categories: reputation, patient survival, patient safety, and care-related factors such as nursing and patient services.

For 2012-2013, the Cleveland Clinic received the maximum US News score of 100, with 64.8% of responding specialists naming the institution as the best for handling difficult cardiology cases. The Cleveland Clinic also received the highest ratings for patient volume (13,792 Medicare inpatient discharges from 2008-2010), and nurse staffing (2.4 nurses per patient), as well as much better than expected 30-day survival in complex patients (10 on a 10 point scale, indicating the highest survival rate relative to other hospitals).

Of the more than 700 hospitals listed in the US News under Cardiology and Heart Surgery, the top 50 are ranked based on score. All are experienced in treating difficult cases—a hospital is listed only if at least 1,308 inpatients in need of high-level expertise in the respective specialty were treated there in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

Below are the top 10, with the top 3 remaining in the same order as the 2011-2012 rankings (table 1).

Table 1. Top 10 Cardiology and Heart Surgery Hospitals for 2012-2013

Most of the top 10 heart and heart surgery hospitals also appear in the “honor roll” of the overall highest ranked hospitals, though not in the same order. Just 17 of the nearly 5,000 hospitals evaluated for 2012-2013 qualified by achieving high scores in at least 6 specialties. The final order was based on points, with 2 points awarded for ranking at or close to the top in a specialty and 1 point for coming in slightly lower. Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA) broke Johns Hopkins’ (Baltimore, MD) 2-decade streak and ranks first this year (table 2).

Table 2. Top 10 ‘Honor Roll’ Hospitals for 2012-2013

Related Stories:

• US News: Cleveland Clinic Top Heart Hospital Yet Again
• US News: Cleveland Clinic Maintains Rank as No. 1 Heart Hospital
• US News: Cleveland Clinic Again Ranked No. 1 Heart Hospital

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