July 19, 2011, ST. LOUIS — Barnes-Jewish Hospital and its physician partners at Washington University School of Medicine is again the only St. Louis area hospital or medical institution listed among America’s elite medical centers in U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Hospitals, while also ranking as the number one medical center in the St. Louis metro area.

For the 19th straight year, Barnes-Jewish earned honors as part of the newsmagazine’s Honor Roll, ranking 11th nationally while ranking in 15 individual specialties. Overall, Barnes-Jewish is one of only 17 hospitals out of the 4,825 evaluated by U.S. News to earn a spot on the Honor Roll.

Only 140 of the almost 5,000 hospitals performed well enough to rank in even one of 16 specialties such as cancer and urology. Barnes-Jewish was ranked in 15 of the 16 specialties. By individual specialty, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine rankings are:

The 2011-12 list of Best Hospitals appears online Wednesday, July 19 at www.usnews.com/besthospitals and in the “Best Hospitals 2011-12” print guide published by U.S. News, available on newsstands August 30.

"Being consistently ranked on the Honor Roll is another example of why we're a national leader in medicine," says Rich Liekweg, Barnes-Jewish Hospital president. "The world-class patient care, research and education that makes us an Honor Roll hospital is thanks to the efforts of our nurses, clinicians and team members as well as our physician partners at Washington University.”

The methodology U.S. News uses to rank 12 of 16 specialties is complex. Whether and how high a hospital is ranked depends largely on hard data, much of which comes from the federal government. Mortality rates and care-related indicators such as nurse to patient ratios are examples of such data. In addition, a reputational score is factored in from a survey of physicians who are asked to name hospitals they consider elite in their specialty.

To be in the running for a ranking in any of the 12 data-driven specialties, a hospital had to meet any of four criteria: it could be a teaching hospital, it could be affiliated with a medical school, it could have at least 200 beds, or it could have at least 100 beds plus four or more of eight key medical technologies. This year, 2,196 hospitals, or 46 percent of the initial number, met that test.

Hospitals in four remaining specialties – ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation, and rheumatology – are ranked solely based on their reputation among specialists.

As for the St. Louis Metro Area rankings, Barnes-Jewish again ranked number one in the region in an update of local rankings U.S. News released in March 2011.

Barnes-Jewish Hospital is a member of BJC HealthCare, which provides a full range of health care services through its 13 hospitals and more than 100 health care sites in Missouri and Illinois. Barnes-Jewish Hospital is also affiliated with Washington University School of Medicine, ranked as one of the nation’s top five medical schools by U.S.News & World Report.