Recently, U.S. News and World Report released its 2016-2017 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings and honor roll. Most of you know that Texas Children’s Hospital maintained its ranking of fourth in the country out of nearly 200 pediatric institutions and that for the eighth straight year, Texas Children’s Hospital is on the Best Children’s Hospital Honor Roll.
We are consistently among the top children’s hospitals across all 10 subspecialty areas measured in the survey. In fact, we have six services ranked among the nation’s top five in their respective subspecialties. Of course we’re proud of this accomplishment, but there’s more to think about than just the numbers when you look at the rankings. We appreciate that there is a certain level of rigor involved in the quality measurements for pediatric hospital rankings.
Consider this. When U.S. News began its Best Hospitals list in 1990, the pediatric rankings were 100 percent reputational for more than 15 years. So the rankings were based squarely on a survey of pediatricians and pediatric specialists across the country who simply listed the children’s hospitals they preferred.
U.S. News shifted its focus in 2007 to make the pediatric survey more data driven, and over the years, the emphasis on the reputational sample from physicians continually decreased as the focus on quality increased. Now, reputation only accounts for 15 percent of a pediatric hospital’s score. While quality (i.e. outcomes, safety and experience) now accounts for 33 percent of our survey score. If you think about the fact that we continue to score better within our respective services as the rankings focus more on quality, you can’t help but appreciate how we continue to measure up.
Our rankings reflect our commitment to providing exceptional care for our patients and their families. Our patients drive our excellence and fuel our passion for what we do at Texas Children’s. They inspire us to dream big, to innovate and make new discoveries that elevate patient care and advance medicine. So when we are recognized as the best children’s hospital in Texas and the Southwest – and one of the very best in the nation – we can be confident that it is based on the things that matter most to our patients – high quality care and safety measures, exceptional experiences and outstanding patient outcomes.
Over the next several months, you will see Texas Children’s advertisements, billboards and videos like this one touting our U.S. News ranking. Your friends and family will see them too, and when they ask you about Texas Children’s, share our story with them. Let them know what’s really driving that number. Let them know how intensely focused we are at Texas Children’s, not on that ranking, but on our exceptional standards that earn us the top rankings time and again.
Leave a Reply