Newsweek Top Hospitals Includes UMass, Newton-Wellesley

WORCESTER, MA — Newsweek released its annual list of the top hospitals in the nation — an imperative underscored by the coronavirus pandemic — and included two hospitals in the MetroWest and Worcester areas.

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.

Eleven Massachusetts hospitals made the list, with a majority located in Boston. But only two hospitals between near I-95 and the Quabbin Reservoir made “The World’s Best Hospitals 2021” ranking:

UMass Memorial Medical Center, Worcester

• Ranked 94 out of 334
• 68.87% overall score
• Performed "above average" for infection control

Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Newton

• Ranked 87 out of 334
• 68.97% overall score
• Performed "above average" for infection control

Other hospitals outside Boston that made the list include Baystate Medical Center in Springfield (68.72% score), Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington (67.84% score), Southcoast Hospitals Group in Fall River (65.79% overall) and Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis (63.9% score).

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.