For the first time ever, leaders and specialists from the nation’s best hospitals and academic medical centers will come together with top editors from U.S. News & World Report to discuss the methodology behind U.S. News’ annual “Best Hospitals” rankings and their value to consumers and the institutions they rank. The national summit, titled “Shaping Health Care Decisions: An Inside Look at Hospital Rankings,” will be held at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, on Thursday, September 27, from 8:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. EDT.
According to a 2011 study from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, 38 percent of Americans use hospital ratings to make a hospital decision, highlighting the importance of the U.S. News summit and of consumer tools like the “Best Hospitals” rankings.
During three panel discussions, health care leaders and editors will explore how current rankings assess quality, what quantifiable data could complement and correlate to reputational criteria, and how the rankings can be expanded to respond to advances in technology and biomedical science, as well as the demographics of health care needs.