U.S. News and World Report rankings include five Kentucky hospitals; UK ranked No.1, followed by Baptist Health Louisville
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| UK Albert B.Chandler Hospital |
Those hospitals were, in this order: University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital, Baptist Health Louisville, Baptist Health Lexington in a tie with St. Elizabeth Healthcare Edgewood-Covington Hospitals, and Louisville’s Norton Hospital.
No Kentucky hospital made the magazine’s Best Hospitals Honor Roll of the top 20 hospitals in the nation. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., was ranked No. 1.
The rankings compared nearly 5,000 medical centers across the country in 25 specialties, procedures and conditions. It looked at things like patient survival, number of patients, hospital-acquired infection, adequacy of nurse staffing and so on.
UK Albert B. Chandler Hospital ranked 45th nationally in geriatrics and was labeled “high performing” in six other specialties: cancer, diabetes and endocrinology, nephrology (kidneys), neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, and pulmonology (lungs). Hospitals so ranked are in the top 10 percent of hospitals nationally, the magazine says.
The report also gave rankings on nine procedures and conditions: including bypass surgery, heart failure, abdominal aortic aneurysm, colon cancer surgery, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hip replacement, knee replacement, lung cancer surgery, and aortic valve surgery.
The UK hospital was ranked high-performing in eight out of nine procedures and conditions, getting an “average” ranking for aortic valve surgery. A high performing rank for a hospital “indicates it was significantly better than the national average in a given procedure or condition,” says the report.
“This acknowledges the exemplary work of our health care team in providing the highest quality patient care in the commonwealth,” Dr. Michael Karpf, UK executive vice president for health affairs, said in a news release. “We are committed to being one of the premier academic medical centers in the country and dedicated in serving those who need complex medical care without ever having to travel far from their home.”
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| Baptist Health Louisville |
Baptist Health Louisville, which was ranked first in Louisville and second in the state, was not ranked in any specialty area, but was ranked high performing in all nine procedures and conditions, an honor that only 63 hospitals received.
Baptist Health Lexington, tied for third in Kentucky, was also not ranked in any specialty area, but ranked high performing in eight of the nine procedures and conditions, getting an average ranking for aortic valve surgery.
St. Elizabeth Healthcare Edgewood-Covington, tied for third in Kentucky and ranking fifth in the Cincinnati metropolitan area, received a high-performing ranking in one specialty area, diabetes and endocrinology. It also received a high-performing ranking for seven procedures and conditions, getting an average ranking for aortic valve surgery and lung cancer surgery.
Norton Hospital, ranked fifth in the state and second in Louisville, was not ranked in any specialty area, but ranked high-performing in five procedures and conditions. It was ranked average for abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, aortic valve surgery, heart bypass surgery and lung cancer surgery.
The report offers a breakdown of how more than 100 Kentucky hospitals rate in each of the measured categories, as relevant to the services the hospital provides. Click here for more about the methodology.