Providence Sacred Heart Makes List Of Best Hospitals In Washington State

SPOKANE, WA - U.S. News and World Report on Tuesday released its annual rankings of the best hospitals in the country for 2017-18, ranking more than 4,500 medical centers in the U.S. in 25 specialties, procedures, and conditions.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., topped the honor roll for the second consecutive year. The hospital was ranked across 15 specialties and ranked in the top five for 13 of the specialties. Cleveland Clinic was ranked No. 2 and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore climbed up the rankings one spot this year to No. 3 on the honor roll.

U.S. News ranked 152 hospitals nationally in at least one specialty and 535 hospitals were recognized as best regional hospitals for those seeking care close to home.

In Washington state, hospitals in Seattle, Puyallup, Renton, Olympia, and Everett came out in the top 10. UW Medicine's Medical Center in Seattle came in No. 1, and the medical center's Seattle Cancer Care Alliance was ranked No. 5 in the nation.

According to the rankings, the best hospitals in Washington state are:

1. University of Washington Medical Center - Seattle
2. Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children's Hospital - Spokane
3. Virginia Mason Medical Center - Seattle
4. Providence St. Peter Hospital - Olympia
5. Providence Regional Medical Center Everett - Everett
6. Swedish Medical Center-First Hill - Seattle
7. Swedish Medical Center-Cherry Hill - Seattle
8. MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital - Puyallup
9. UW Medicine/Harborview Medical Center - Seattle
10. UW Medicine/Valley Medical Center - Renton
11. PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center - Vancouver

The methodology used by U.S. News is based largely on objective measures with more than 70 percent of the rankings relying on such data. The rankings also took into account survey answers from more than 125,000 physicians across the country about reputation. U.S. News also looked at five years of Medicare data and the number of patients treated in hospitals. The methodology was also updated to avoid penalizing patients for treating low-income hospitals or for accepting high-risk cases transferred from other hospitals. For the best regional hospitals, procedures and conditions rankings were emphasized more than specialty rankings.

Image via UW Medicine/Andrew Buchanan