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Hackensack University Medical Center singled out in magazine's article on Best Hospitals
BY WARREN BOROSON
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The best hospitals in the country, unfortunately, are not in New Jersey — at least according to U.S. News & World Report's 2010-11 latest article on Best Hospitals (August).
But Hackensack University Medical Center didn't do badly. It was singled out for its geriatrics department and its heart/heart surgery department, the only hospital in New Jersey to receive two rankings in this year's publication. It was also only one of 152 hospitals to be ranked in the top 50 in a specialty.
Hackensack ranked 33rd in geriatrics and 48th in heart and heart surgery.
Its recognition, said Robert C. Garrett, president and CEO of Hackensack University Medical Center in a press release, "reflects the hard work and dedication of our entire healthcare team, while constantly staying focused on quality. Furthermore, the rankings underscore our philosophy that patients have always been and will always be our top priority."
New Jersey hospitals receiving a single ranking were Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, 47th in heart and heart surgery; Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, 37th in pulmonary; and the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, 2nd of 20 in rehabilitation. (With rehab centers, the key measure was reputation among physicians.) The only rehab center that surpassed Kessler was the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
To be considered in the 12 specialties, a hospital had to meet one of four criteria, namely, 1. be a teaching hospital, 2. be affiliated with a medical school, 3. have at least 200 beds, or 4. Have at least 100 beds plus four of eight key medical technologies and certain radiation therapies).
Of the 4,852 hospitals evaluated, only 45% met those criteria.
Hospitals also had to meet requirements regarding the volume of patients with certain illnesses.
The ranking in 12 of the 16 specialties was determined by such things as death rates, balance of nurses and patients, and procedure volume. In the other four specialties (like rehabilitation), reputation alone counted - because mortality data in those specialties don't mean much.
Special awards went to hospitals that adhered to certain achievement measures over a certain period of time.
Triple Gold Recognition went to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson.
Gold Plus achievement awards went to (in alphabetical order) Capital Health, Trenton; Cooper University Hospital, Camden; Englewood Hospital & Medical Center, Englewood; Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune; Kennedy University Hospital, Cherry Hill; Morristown Memorial Hospital, Morristown; Ocean Medical Center, Brick; Our Lady of Lourdes Health System, Camden; Overlook Hospital, Summit; Riverview Medical Center, Red Bank; Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton, Hamilton; Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick; and Virtua [cq] Memorial Hospital, Mt. Holly.
Gold achievement awards AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, Atlantic City and Pomona Campuses; Christ Hospital, Jersey City; East Orange General Hospital, East Orange; Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Newark; Palisades Medical Center, North Bergen; South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center, Vineland; and The University Hospital — UMDNJ, Newark.
Silver Plus achievement awards went to Hackettstown Regional Medical Center, Hackettstown; JFK Medical Center, Edison; Saint Clare's Hospital, Denville; South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center, Vineland; South Jersey Healthcare-Elmer Hospital, Elmer; and The Valley Hospital, Ridgewood.
A Silver achievement award went to Raritan Bay Medical Center, Perth Amboy.
The single best hospital in the entire country, for the past 20 years, has been judged to be Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Others in the top 14: Mayo Clinic, Rochester; Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Cleveland Clinic; Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center; New York-Presbyterian University of Columbia and Cornell; University of California, San Francisco Medical Center; Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University; Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.; Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston; University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle; UMC-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; and University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, in Ann Arbor.
Warren Boroson's financial column appears on Mondays.
