The America’s Best-in-State Hospitals 2026 ranking awards the nation’s 800 leading hospitals.
This year’s methodology introduces several key updates, including an expansion of hospital quality metrics and accreditation coverage, the incorporation of prior-year expert recommendations and a stronger focus on care quality and patient-reported outcome measures. Reflecting these enhancements, the ranking has been broadened from the top 700 in-state hospitals in 2025 to 800 in 2026. Fifty state lists as well as a list for the District of Columbia were identified.
The lists are based on four data pillars:
- Hospital quality metrics: 50 percent of the total score
- Hospital reputation: 30 percent of the total score
- Patient experience: 15 percent of the total score
- PROMs implementation: 5 percent of the total score
1. Hospital quality metrics
Hospital quality metrics were drawn from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Medicare Fee-for-Service claims sourced from Arcadia, the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals Database and accreditation data from recognized bodies.
The evaluation framework includes multiple components, each made up of distinct health care-related datasets:
- CMS: incorporates data from seven different care categories, offering a broad view of healthcare services
- Arcadia: Represents care on two levels:
- Population-level care: focuses on health outcomes across larger populations
- Episodes of care: zooms in on specific treatment events or periods
- AHA: provides insights into the infrastructure and organizational strength of hospitals, categorized into:
- General: basic hospital capacity and characteristics
- Technologies and innovation: adoption of modern medical technologies
- Health equity: implementation of measures addressing disparities in care
- Staffing: addition this year to assess workforce resources
- Hospital accreditations: recognizes quality through credentials from well-known organizations, such as:
- The Joint Commission
- Planetree
- ANCC Magnet Recognition Program, from the American Nurses Credentialing Center
- Accreditation Commission for Health Care
2. Hospital reputation
From July to August 2025, Statista invited medical professionals (doctors, hospital managers and other health care professionals) to an online survey. In the survey, participants recommend leading hospitals within and outside their state (out-of-state recommendations are optional). Recommendations for one’s own employer are not allowed. Participants rate recommended hospitals in several quality dimensions on a scale of one to 10: quality of care (45 percent), patient counseling (25 percent), accommodation and amenities (12.5 percent), staffing (10 percent) and organization and accessibility (7.5 percent).
These assessments, the number of recommendations and the professional experience of the participant were used to determine the reputation score.
3. Patient experience
Patient experience is incorporated through results from a survey conducted by Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. Survey topics include: cleanliness of the hospital, communication of the nurses/doctors, care transition, communication about medicines, discharge information, quietness and staff responsiveness.
Hospitals with an outstanding performance in patient experience are additionally recognized with a patient experience award.
4. PROMs implementation
In Fall 2024, Newsweek and Statista conducted the PROMs implementation survey to determine the status of PROMs implementation, audits and reporting of the data and whether PROMs data is used to optimize the care process and support therapeutic decisions in real-time. Up to three ribbons can be awarded based on the points accrued within this survey.
Disclaimer: The rankings are comprised exclusively of hospitals that are eligible regarding the scope described in this document. The ranking is the result of an elaborate process which, due to the interval of data-collection and analysis, is a reflection of the last 12 months. Furthermore, events preceding or following the period September 1, 2024 to September 1, 2025, and/or pertaining to individual persons affiliated/associated with the facilities were not included in the metrics. As such, the results of this ranking should not be used as the sole source of information for future deliberations.
The information provided in this ranking should be considered in conjunction with other available information about hospitals or, if possible, accompanied by a visit to a facility. Please note that data are subject to change and may be affected by continuing differences among states in abortion laws. The quality of hospitals that are not included in the rankings is not disputed.
Download the methodology here.
Download the extended methodology here.
About Statista R
Statista R is a world leader in the creation of company, brand and product rankings, based on comprehensive market research and data analysis. With a team of over 100 expert analysts and partnerships with more than 50 media publications across all continents, Statista creates transparency for consumers and helps companies build trust and recognition across a plethora of industries and product categories. Please visit r.statista.com for further information about Statista R and our rankings.
Statista R is a division of Statista. The leading data and business intelligence portal provides an extensive collection of statistics, reports and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries. Find out more at statista.com.
About ICHOM
The International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement ( www.ichom.org) is the leading nonprofit dedicated to transforming health care by focusing on what truly matters to patients. They accomplish this by empowering patient and clinical leaders to standardize important clinical, quality of life, function and experience results for health care, and enabling transparent large-scale use to achieve patient-centric health system transformation. ICHOM's standardized “sets” of patient-centered outcomes measures help all actors in health care design, deliver and evaluate care based on outcomes that matter to patients. To date, ICHOM has developed 45 outcome measure sets for conditions. The sets are available in IT-ready interoperable formats and have been implemented in 500+ care settings in 42+ countries.
