New York Presbyterian Hospital Named One of the Best Children’s Hospitals in America

The New York Presbyterian Hospital was placed on the 2011-12 Honor Roll of U.S. News & World Report's eight best children's hospitals in the nation, and is the only tri-state area hospital to make the list. In addition to New York-Presbyterian, the report also honored New York's Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and the Phyllis and David Komansky Center for Children's Health.

The rankings focused on the following specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology.

"It's an honor to be listed in the honor roll," said Kevin Hammeran, the chief operating officer of New York's Presbyterian's Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. "It's a privilege to be in such a select company."

Although the US News has been ranking adult and children's hospitals separately for several years, adult programs are generally ranked differently than children's. Hammeran went on to explain that while adult medical specialties are ranked on more of a reputational score, pediatric scoring comes straight from survey results from a random sample of pediatricians. "It looks at outcomes, it looks at volumes and statistics, it has a ton of questions about our programs," says Hammeran. It's a very comprehensive survey that forms the basis of the majority of the score. They have a random sample of nation-wide pediatricians and they ask them to list the strongest hospitals."

Hammeran went on to describe the survey's scoring criteria: "The aforementioned survey covers 10 specialties, and we ranked in all 10. Nanothology (the care of newborns who have medical complications) was a stand out program, as we have some of the best survival rates of that group of infants." The hospital also ranked particularly high in cardiovascular sciences.