Newsweek Top Hospitals Ranking Includes Lahey Hospital

BURLINGTON, MA — The coronavirus pandemic brought home the importance of access to high-quality health care, Newsweek said with the announcement Thursday of the world’s best hospitals. The U.S. list includes Burlington's Lahey Hospital and Medical Center.

Lahey lands at 116 in the U.S. with a score of 67.84 percent and above-average performance in infection prevention measures.

Newsweek partnered with the respected global data research firm Statistica Inc. to compile the ranking, which Global Editor-in-Chief Nancy Cooper said “may be our most important ranking yet” given the demand placed on hospitals during the pandemic.

This is the third year Newsweek has released the ranking, topped both globally and in the United States by the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The list includes 2,000 hospitals in 25 countries that “stand out for their consistent excellence, including distinguished physicians, top-notch nursing care and state-of-the-art technology,” Cooper said in the announcement of the list.

In Massachusetts, three hospitals made the “The World’s Best Hospitals 2021” ranking:

• Ranked #3 worldwide: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 89.05%
• #25: Brigham And Women's Hospital, Boston, 79.34%
• #101-200: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, 73.17%

Three data sources were used to compile the list: recommendations from medical experts; results from patient surveys; and key performance indicators measuring things such as inpatient mortality rates, injuries to patients, bed turnover, Medicare and Medicaid measures, and occupancy.

Every hospital received a score, but Newsweek noted the scores are only comparable among hospitals in the same country. For example, a score of 90 percent in one country doesn’t necessarily indicate the quality is better than in a hospital in another country that received a score of 87 percent.

The top three U.S. hospitals had the same ranking globally, and all 10 of the top U.S. hospitals were among the top 35 in the world, according to the ranking.

The Top 10 U.S. hospitals on the ranking are:

1. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota (No. 1 globally)
2. Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland (No. 2 globally)
3. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (No. 3 globally)
4. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore (No. 5 globally)
5. Stanford Health Care – Stanford Hospital, Stanford, Connecticut (No. 13 globally)
6. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, California (No. 17 globally)
7. The Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City (No. 30 globally)
8. University of Michigan Hospitals – Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan (No. 23 globally)
9. Brigham And Women’s Hospital, Boston (No. 25 globally)
10. New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell, New York City (No. 33 globally)

» Read more on the methodology from Newsweek.