The best hospitals 2018-19 honor roll

The hospital system which calls Charleston home has been named South Carolina's best hospital for the fourth straight year by U.S. News & World Report.

In Louisville, Norton Hospital on Chestnut Street is ranked No. 2, down from No. 1 the prior year, and Jewish Hospital is ranked No. 3 on the 2018 list. We continue to be the fifth-ranked hospital in the state of California, and given the size of the state and hundreds of hospitals that are here, that's a tremendous accolade for us.

Hospitals were awarded Honor Roll points if they ranked in one or more of the 16 specialties that U.S. News evaluates - more points for higher rankings - and if they were rated "high performing" in one or more of the nine procedures and conditions.

Bronson ranked ninth in the state and Borgess ranked fourteenth. It ranked in 11 of 25 categories, including 14th for gynecology, 16th for nephrology, 19th in urology, and 20th for its ear, nose and throat specialty. It also received a children's specialty ranking for its pediatric cardiology & heart surgery practice.

Now on their 29th year, the annual Best Hospitals rankings are created to assist patients and their doctors in making informed decisions about where to receive care for challenging health conditions or for common elective procedures.

Out of almost 5,000 hospitals analyzed nationwide, Penn Medicine is among only 20 institutions to be named to the publication's 2018-2019 Honor Roll.

Three other specialties at the hospital - cancer, geriatrics and nephrology -were considered high performing.

All three are flagship hospitals within prestigious medical schools and part of large networks with regional hospitals, medical practices and diagnostic labs. Harborview also was ranked high-performing in abdominal aortic aneurysm fix.

The U.S. News Best Hospitals methodologies in most areas of care are based largely or entirely on objective measures such as risk-adjusted survival and readmission rates, volume, patient experience, patient safety and quality of nursing, among other care-related indicators. Baptist Health Lexington came in second in the state, followed by third-place Baptist Health Louisville. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C. They looked at teaching hospitals, hospitals affiliated with a medical school, hospitals with at least 200 beds or those with at least 100 beds that treated patients in at least four of eight specialties that U.S. News deemed significant. "Year after year, this confirms that we are leading medicine and providing our community the highest quality medical care, research and education possible".