List: Healthgrades reveals America's Best Hospitals for 2018

Winning hospital Cedars - Sinai Medical Center - Credit: Google Street View

Healthgrades revealed the hospitals which have earned it's America's 50 and 100 Best Hospitals for 2018. The award winners represent the top 1 and 2 percent of hospitals in the country, and have demonstrated "superior clinical outcomes across the majority of common inpatient conditions and procedures," the organization said.

Additionally, those hospitals which make the grade and appear on either list can only do so if they tout a years-long record with Healthgrades. The hospitals appearing on the America's 100 Best Hospitals list received a Healthgrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence for at least the last five years. Those on the 50 Best Hospitals received the Clinical Excellence award for at least seven consecutive years and sustained this performance for at least five consecutive years.

The Healthgrades analysis showed that those hospitals recognized as America's Best did better than their peers in treating a core group of conditions that cause more than 80 percent of mortalities in areas evaluated, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, respiratory failure, sepsis and stroke. 

"Patients treated in hospitals achieving the America's 100 Best Hospitals Award have, on average, a 22.3 percent lower risk of dying than if they were treated in hospitals that did not receive this award. If all hospitals, as a group, performed similarly to hospitals achieving Healthgrades 2018 America's 100 Best Hospitals Award, on average, 162,284 lives could potentially have been saved," the organization said in a statement.

In addition to consistently achieving better outcomes, this Healthgrades winners also prioritize collaboration.

"We've built a model where quality and safety are foremost, innovation and collaboration are encouraged, lessons learned are shared broadly, and patient engagement is essential to our continuous improvement efforts," said Gary S. Kaplan, MD, chairman and CEO, Virginia Mason Health System, recipient of Healthgrades America's 50 Best Hospitals distinction.

See the list of the top 50 hospitals below. (Full list at Healthgrades)

Twitter: @BethJSanborn
Email the writer: beth.sanborn@himssmedia.com