Morristown Medical Center NJ’s Best Hospital In New Ranking

Russ Crespolini
Updated ·6 min read

NEW JERSEY - U.S. News & World Report has released its latest rankings of the best hospitals in the United States, with all rankings coming from data that was derived before the coronavirus pandemic. So the pandemic’s impact on hospitals nationwide is not shown in the latest rankings.

“The pandemic has altered, perhaps permanently, how patients get care and from whom they get it. Amid the disruption, we are steadfastly committed to providing the public with authoritative data for comparing hospital quality,” said Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News. “No hospital’s clinical team came through this unprecedented health crisis unscathed.”

In New Jersey, 13 hospitals were on the state’s best hospitals list. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was once again ranked as the best hospital in the nation.

Regional Hospital Rankings
In New Jersey, the top-ranked hospitals are:

  • Morristown Medical Center

  • Hackensack University Medical Center

  • St. Barnabas Medical Center

  • Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital

  • Valley Hospital

  • Jersey Shore University Medical Center

  • Hackensack Meridian Health Ocean Medical Center

  • Virtua Voorhees Hospital

  • AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center

  • Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center

  • Jefferson Health-Stratford, Cherry Hill and Washington Township

  • Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital

  • Hackensack Meridian Health Riverview Medical Center

  • Overlook Medical Center

The 16 specialties that hospitals were ranked for are: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, gastroenterology and GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, psychiatry, pulmonology and lung surgery, rehabilitation, rheumatology and urology.

In New Jersey, only Morristown Medical Center made the specialty list, coming in at 38 for cardiology and heart surgery. For the third year in a row, the facility was the number 1 hospital in the Garden State.

Morristown Medical Center was also recognized as high-performing in ten common adult procedures and conditions: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair, Aortic Valve Surgery, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), Heart Bypass Surgery, Heart Failure, Colon Cancer Surgery, Hip Replacement, Knee Replacement, Lung Cancer Surgery and TAVR (transcatheter aortic valve replacement). It was also recognized as a high-performing hospital in five
specialties: Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Nephrology, Pulmonology, Lung Surgery and Urology.

“This outstanding national recognition demonstrates the unwavering commitment to excellence from our medical, clinical and support teams to ensure exceptional care is consistently delivered to bring about the best-possible patient outcomes,” said Trish O’Keefe, PhD, RN, President, Morristown Medical Center. “This recognition validates our innovative and seamless coordination that results in providing high-quality care for our patients. Our communities know that they can
rely on us to deliver the quality programs and resources to keep them healthy. We are thrilled by this prestigious recognition.”

Overlook Medical Center, in Summit was also on the list for the tenth consecutive year.

“These honors are a testament to the passion and clinical excellence of our health care heroes,” said Brian Gragnolati, President and CEO, Atlantic Health System. “My gratitude and congratulations go out to every member of our amazing team. It’s their dedication, talent and innovation that delivers extraordinary care to our communities and makes us a truly great place to work.”

This year, the U.S. News rankings are accompanied by their “Hospital Heroes” project, a series of profiles highlighting more than 60 health care heroes from across the country.

“Our Hospital Heroes series is a tribute to recognizing individuals at urban and rural hospitals in communities across the country who have gone above and beyond during this unparalleled time in history,” Harder said.

U.S. News updated rankings for 16 medical specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, gastroenterology and GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, psychiatry, pulmonology and lung surgery, rehabilitation, rheumatology and urology.

The hospital rankings for 2020-21 include the Honor Roll, top-ranked hospitals in 16 specialty categories, and the top-ranked hospitals by state and metro region.

Twelve of the specialty rankings — which cover categories such as cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology and nephrology — are determined mostly by data; the other four specialties — ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation and rheumatology — are determined entirely by expert opinion, U.S. News said.

Honor Roll Hospitals

U.S. News said the hospitals that make the Honor Roll deliver exceptional treatment across multiple areas of care.

“The Honor Roll is geared to identifying hospitals that are both exceptionally good at the service they offer and offer a wide breadth of service,” Harder told Patch last year, explaining that by definition, that means hospitals that are highly ranked across many or most specialties.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota took the No.1 spot on the 2020-21 Honor Roll, followed by the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell, New York and the UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles rounded out the top five on the Honor Roll.

The remaining hospitals on the Honor Roll are:

  • 6. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

  • 7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, San Francisco

  • 8. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco

  • 9. NYU Langone Hospitals, New York, N.Y.

  • 10. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

  • 11. University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor

  • 12. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston

  • 13. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, California

  • 14. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York

  • 15. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia

  • 16. Mayo Clinic-Phoenix

  • 17. Rush University Medical Center, Chicago

  • 18. Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Saint Louis (tie)

  • 18. Keck Medical Center of USC, Los Angeles (tie)

  • 20. Houston Methodist Hospital

Methodology

U.S. News & World Report said the 2020-21 rankings evaluated nearly every community hospital in America. Only 134 hospitals out of over 4,500 were ranked in one specialty, while 563 hospitals were ranked among the best regional hospitals. A hospital was ranked regionally based on its performance in delivering complex and common care, U.S. News said. The rankings are jointly produced by U.S. News and RTI International, a North Carolina-based research organization. (Read the full U.S. News best hospitals methodology.)

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This article originally appeared on the Morristown Patch