U.S. News & World Report has named Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in seven specialties in the new 2014-15 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings.
Recognized specialties include cardiology/heart surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology/neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology.
“The University of Tennessee Health Science Center is proud to be the major academic partner of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and, as such, we are proud to celebrate this continued acknowledgement of Le Bonheur as one of the nation’s Best Children’s Hospitals,” said Steve J. Schwab, MD, UTHSC chancellor. “Since the vast majority of the physicians at Le Bonheur are UTHSC faculty members, it is our joint physician-faculty who provide the clinical care for patients and the training for generations of new pediatric care professionals. We applaud the ongoing efforts of our shared providers and their teams who are consistently bringing the best clinical care to Le Bonheur children and their families.”
“We are thrilled to be recognized as one of the country’s best children’s hospitals,” said Le Bonheur Children’s President and CEO Meri Armour, MSN/MBA. “We use the U.S. News process as a way to improve the care we offer children. It is our responsibility as health experts to give our children every opportunity to grow up healthy and strong. Le Bonheur researchers, physicians and the entire medical team are committed to excellent clinical care, investigating the causes of our region’s most pressing health problems and teaching the next generation of health professionals.”
The Best Children’s Hospitals rankings highlight U.S. News’s top 50 U.S. pediatric facilities in cancer, cardiology & heart surgery, diabetes & endocrinology, gastroenterology & GI surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology & neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology. Eighty-nine hospitals ranked in at least one specialty, based on a combination of clinical data and reputation with pediatric specialists.
U.S. News introduced the Best Children’s Hospitals rankings in 2007 to help families of sick children find the best medical care available. The rankings open the door to an array of detailed information about each hospital’s performance.
Five-sixths of each hospital’s score relied on patient outcomes and the care-related resources each hospital makes available. To gather clinical data, U.S. News sent a clinical questionnaire to 183 pediatric hospitals. The remaining one-sixth of the score derived from a survey of 450 pediatric specialists and subspecialists in each specialty over three years. The 4,500 physicians were asked where they would send the sickest children in their specialty, setting aside location and expense.
“Every Best Children’s Hospital deserves high praise,” said U.S. News Health Rankings Editor Avery Comarow. “We know how important it is to parents to have confidence in pediatric centers that show dedication and expertise in caring for a child facing a life-threatening, rare or demanding illness.”
Survival rates, adequacy of nurse staffing, procedure volume and much more can be viewed on https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/pediatric-rankings and will be published in the U.S. News “Best Hospitals 2015” guidebook, which will be available in August.
About Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital
Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., treats more than 250,000 children each year in a 255-bed hospital that features state-of-the-art technology and family-friendly resources. Nationally recognized, Le Bonheur is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a “Best Children’s Hospital.” Serving as a primary teaching affiliate for the University Tennessee Health Science Center, the hospital trains more pediatricians than any other hospital in the state. For more information, please call (901) 287-6030 or visit lebonheur.org. Follow us at twitter.com/lebonheurchild, facebook.com/lebonheurchildrens and instagram.com/lebonheurchildrens.