Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1028549
50 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT US News' Best Hospitals 2018-19 Honor Roll By Alyssa Rege U .S. News & World Repor t released its B est Hospitals rankings for 2018-19 on Aug. 14. This year's rankings compared more than 4,500 medical centers across 25 specialties, procedures and condi- tions. For the 2018-19 rankings, 158 hospitals were nation- ally ranked in at least one specialty. For the third consecutive year, Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic ranked as the No. 1 hospital on U.S. News' B est Hospitals Honor Roll. Here are the top 20 hospitals named to U.S. News' 2018-19 B est Hospitals Honor Roll, including ties: 1. Mayo Clinic 2. Cleveland Clinic 3. The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore) 4. Massachusetts General Hospital (B oston) 5. Michigan Medicine (Ann Arbor) 6. UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco) 7. UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles) 8. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles) 9. Stanford (Calif.) Hospital 10. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York City) 11. Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis) 11. Mayo Clinic Hospital (Phoenix) 13. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago) 14. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Pres- byterian (Philadelphia) 15. NYU Langone Hospital (New York City) 15. UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside (Pittsburgh) 17. Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, Tenn.) 18. The Mount Sinai Hospital (New York City) 19. Duke University Hospital (Durham, N.C.) 20. Brigham and Women's Hospital (B oston) n CMS' overall star ratings updates, delays: A timeline By Mackenzie Bean C MS launched its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings program in 2016, spurring a complicated web of updates and delays in response to scrutiny over the accuracy of the rating system's data and calculations. Here is a complete timeline of updates and delays for the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings program: April 2016: Just one day before the scores were supposed to go live, CMS postpones the program's release to July 2016. July 2016: CMS launches the Overall Hospital Star Ratings Program. October 2016: The agency releases an October star ratings update that includes new data on patient experi- ence and care safety, effectiveness and timeliness. December 2016: CMS releases new scores and changes the star ratings updates to twice a year, instead of quarterly. June 2017: CMS delays its July star ratings update to October due to scoring issues with three quality mea- sures: central line-associated bloodstream infections, Clostridium difficile infections and PSI-90. September 2017: The agency again postpones the update scheduled for October due to issues with the same three quality measures. December 2017: CMS updated its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings after a five-month delay. June 2018: CMS delays its July star ratings update for the second consecutive year. The agency has not re- leased plans for the next update. n