US News’ top children’s hospitals for 11 specialties 

By Kelly Gooch for Becker’s Hospital Review

As part of its annual best children’s hospitals rankings, U.S. News & World Report examined hospitals across 10 specialties.

The media company, in collaboration with RTI International collected and examined data from 108 children’s hospitals and surveyed thousands of pediatric specialists. The rankings reflect measures such as clinical outcomes, compliance with established best practices, and level and quality of hospital resources directly related to patient care.  

In total, 88 hospitals were ranked among the top 50 in at least one specialty. This year’s rankings include a new specialty, pediatric and adolescent behavioral health, featuring 50 top programs. This is the first specialty added to the rankings in more than a decade and a half. 

The media company also did not assign ordinal ranks to the top 50 programs within the pediatric and adolescent behavioral health specialty. Instead, programs received equal recognition as the best hospitals for that specialty. More information about the methodology is available here.

Top five hospitals in 10 specialties: 

Pediatric cancer
1. Cincinnati Children’s
2. Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center
3. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
4. Texas Children’s Hospital (Houston) 
5. Children’s National Hospital (Washington, D.C.) 

Pediatric cardiology and heart surgery
1. Texas Children’s Hospital
2. MUSC Children’s Heart Network of South Carolina (Charleston, S.C.)
3. Rady Children’s Hospital (San Diego)
4. Duke Children’s Hospital and Health Center (Durham, N.C.)
5. Cincinnati Children’s and Kentucky Children’s Hospital Joint Heart Program Pediatric

Pediatric neurology and neurosurgery
1. Boston Children’s Hospital
2. Texas Children’s Hospital
3. Cincinnati Children’s
4. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
5. Children’s National Hospital

Pediatric orthopedics
1. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
2. Children’s Medical Center Dallas-Scottish Rite for Children
3. Cincinnati Children’s
4. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
5. Rady Children’s Hospital

Pediatric urology
1. Boston Children’s Hospital
2. Texas Children’s Hospital
3. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
4. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
5. Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health (Indianapolis)

Pediatric pulmonology and lung surgery
1. Cincinnati Children’s
2. Texas Children’s Hospital
3. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
4. Boston Children’s Hospital
5. Nationwide Children’s Hospital (Columbus, Ohio)

Pediatric nephrology
1. Texas Children’s Hospital
2. Boston Children’s Hospital
3. Cincinnati Children’s
4. Nationwide Children’s Hospital
5. Seattle Children’s Hospital

Pediatric neonatology
1. Boston Children’s Hospital
2. Children’s National Hospital
3. Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston
4. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
5. Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford (Palo Alto, Calif.)

Pediatric gastroenterology and GI surgery 
1. Cincinnati Children’s
2. Boston Children’s Hospital
3. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
4. Nationwide Children’s Hospital
5. Texas Children’s Hospital

Pediatric diabetes and endocrinology
1. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
2. Cincinnati Children’s
3. Boston Children’s Hospital
4. Texas Children’s Hospital
5. Children’s Hospital Colorado (Aurora)

The 55 hospitals awarded top 50 recognition for pediatric and adolescent behavioral health, in alphabetical order:

Note: Given ties between multiple programs, 55 were awarded top 50 recognition for this year’s edition.

• AdventHealth for Children (Orlando, Fla.)
• Akron (Ohio) Children’s Hospital
• Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
• Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children (Orlando, Fla.)
• Boston Children’s Hospital
• Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (New York City) 
• Children’s Hospital Colorado
• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
• Children’s Hospital of Alabama at UAB (Birmingham)
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
• Children’s Hospital of Richmond (Va.) at VCU 
• Children’s Medical Center Dallas
• Children’s Mercy Kansas City (Mo.) Hospital 
• Children’s National Hospital
• Children’s Wisconsin Hospital (Milwaukee)
• CHOC Children’s Hospital (Orange, Calif.)
• Cincinnati Children’s
• Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital
• Cohen Children’s Medical Center (New Hyde Park, N.Y.)
• Cook Children’s Medical Center (Fort Worth, Texas)
• Dayton (Ohio) Children’s Hospital
• Dell Children’s Medical Center (Austin, Texas)
• Hackensack (N.J.) Meridian Health JM Sanzari and K Hovnanian Children’s Hospitals
• Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital-University of Utah (Salt Lake City)
• Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital at Memorial (Hollywood, Fla.)
• Johns Hopkins Children’s Center-Kennedy Krieger Institute (Baltimore)
• Kentucky Children’s Hospital (Lexington)
• Levine Children’s Hospital (Charlotte, N.C.)
• Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
• Mayo Clinic Children’s Center (Rochester, Minn.)
• Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.)
• Nationwide Children’s Hospital (Columbus, Ohio)
• Nemours Children’s Hospital-Delaware (Wilmington)
• New York-Presbyterian Children’s Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York City) 
• North Carolina Children’s Hospital at UNC (Chapel Hill)
• Norton Children’s Hospital (Louisville, Ky.)
• Penn State Health Children’s Hospital (Hershey, Pa.)
• Phoenix Children’s Hospital
• Rady Children’s Hospital
• Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital (Cleveland)
• Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health
• Seattle Children’s Hospital
• St. Louis Children’s Hospital-Washington University
• Texas Children’s Hospital
• UC Davis Children’s Hospital (Sacramento, Calif.)
• UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital (Los Angeles)
• UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals (San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.)
• UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital (Gainesville, Fla.)
• University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital
• University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital (Iowa City)
• University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital (Ann Arbor)
• University of Rochester-Golisano Children’s Hospital (Rochester, N.Y.)
• UPMC Children’s and Western Psychiatric Hospitals (Pittsburgh)
• Wolfson Children’s Hospital (Jacksonville, Fla.)
• Yale New Haven (Conn.) Children’s Hospital

This year’s Honor Roll recognizes the 10 hospitals with the highest rankings across all specialties, which, for the first time, were not ordinally ranked. See that list here. See all of the full rankings here.