Here’s Where CHOP Ranks Among Leading U.S. Children’s Hospitals

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

For the third consecutive year, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is the second best pediatric medical center in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report.

For the 2017-18 rankings, U.S. News requested medical data and other information from 187 facilities across the country. This year, 113 of those medical centers—seven more than last year—submitted adequate information to be evaluated in the rankings.

CHOP was surpassed Boston Children’s Hospital, which took the top spot for the third consecutive year. In 2012, the two hospitals tied for first place. CHOP was last ranked no. 1 in 2013.

Like last year, U.S. News released a Best Children’s Hospital Honor Roll, which awards pediatric centers that “deliver high-quality care across multiple specialties”: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology. CHOP was one of 10 hospitals to earn a place on the special list, ranking second after Boston Children’s Hospital, which was named no. 1 in five specialities. 

Here’s how CHOP ranked in each of the 10 pediatric specialties:

• 1st, Diabetes and Endocrinology
• 1st, Pulmonology
• 2nd, Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Surgery
• 2nd, Neonatology
• 2nd, Nephrology
• 2nd, Neurology and Neurosurgery
• 2nd, Orthopedics
• 2nd, Urology
• 3rd, Cancer
• 9th, Cardiology and Heart Surgery

For 2016-17, CHOP ranked third in the “>Cardiology and Heart Surgery specialty. This year’s steep drop to 9th place (behind pediatric centers like Texas Children’s Hospital, and the Children’s Hospitals of Colorado, Wisconsin and Los Angeles) may be reflective of a change in how U.S. News evaluated institutions in the specialty this year.

The publication reduced the weight of hospital reputation in this specialty from 15 percent to 8.5 percent and added a new measure of patient survival based on the Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ Congenital Heart Surgery Database. The database provides “the most accurate information to help assess outcomes of pediatric heart surgery programs” and “provides families with valuable information about […] quality,” said Jeffrey P. Jacobs, chair of the STS National Database Workforce and co-director of the John Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute.

To rate and score each of the institutions overall, U.S. News says it uses objective measures such as clinical outcomes patient volume, infection control, adequacy of nursing staff, efficiency and coordination of care delivery, compliance with best practices, and more. Research and consulting firm RTI International collected and analyzed data from the hospitals and surveyed thousands of pediatric specialists.

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