U.S. News & World Report has again ranked St. Louis Children’s Hospital-Washington University School of Medicine among America’s Best Children’s Hospitals. The publication ranked St. Louis Children’s first in the state of Missouri, and among the top 9 percent, or 18th, in the nation.
In 2019, St. Louis Children’s Hospital ranked among the nation’s top 10 with newborn medicine ranking No. 10. Two other areas, pulmonology and neurology and neurosurgery, also ranked in the top 10 at No. 5 and No. 6 respectively.
“Being ranked highly in neonatology represents the dedication of our faculty and staff to excellence in care, with a focus on quality improvement and willingness to evaluate and alter practices that need improvement,” says Barbara Warner, MD, a Washington University neonatologist at St. Louis Children’s and director of the Division of Newborn Medicine.
Key strengths of the program include close collaboration between physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, respiratory therapy, developmental therapists and other paraprofessionals. Collaborations with subspecialists in obstetrics, fetal care, neurology, neurosurgery, pediatric surgery, ENT, cardiology, pulmonary medicine, and genetics drives new research to improve outcomes that ultimately help patients, Dr. Warner says.
“We work as a team. As a result, we identify and approach problems more effectively. We have leaders with national reputations in all arenas of neonatal and pediatric care, from the basic sciences to quality improvement. This helps drive the work we do—to translate innovations to the bedside.”
U.S. News & World Report evaluates 10 individual pediatric specialties. St. Louis Children’s was among only 24 out of 191 hospitals to rank in every specialty, and is the only pediatric hospital within nearly 250 miles to rank in all 10 specialties.
The 10 pediatric specialties are cancer, cardiology/heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology.
Children’s programs were within the top 25 in each of the 10 specialties.
The full rankings and methodology are available at USnews.com. The rankings will also be published in the U.S. News Best Hospitals 2019 guidebook.
