Hospital rankings: What to know about them and why they matter

Patients and caregivers on Long Island have more than 20 hospitals to choose from, and that can make decisions about care daunting. But hospital rankings can be a starting point — one tool among many — to help compare facilities.

Hospitals are rated and recognized year-round for quality, specialties and performance by groups including the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. News & World Report and the nonprofit Leapfrog Group.

Here’s what Long Islanders should know about what the ratings measure, why some experts say they need to be read with caution and how to use them wisely.

Do hospital ratings matter?

Ratings can provide patients useful snapshots on safety or specialty care.

"It's really important that we have rankings," said Patricia Kelmar, senior director of health care campaigns for the advocacy group PIRG. "Not all hospitals are providing the same levels of safe and effective care."

Hospitals that score highly often tout the rankings in their marketing through public relations campaigns. 

"They're designed to make people feel good and come in for an elective surgery or procedure," said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the nonpartisan health care think tank the Lown Institute, which has its own ranking system, the Lown Institute Hospitals Index.

What do critics say?

Hospital ratings have faced sharp criticism from experts, academics and doctors. Experts point to discordant methodologies, inconsistent timelines, and incomplete data. A recent study concluded: “The rating organizations’ reported metrics were highly discordant. A hospital's ranking by one organization frequently did not correspond to a similar ranking by another.”

Since each organization uses a different methodology, patients may find themselves reading contradictory information, according to nonprofit advocacy group Healthcare Association of New York State.

"The proliferation of scorecards means that hospitals often receive divergent ratings across different reports, even when the reports are based on some of the same measures," HANYS spokesperson Kate Penn said in an email to Newsday.

HANYS also published a 2019 "Report on Report Cards" that Penn said is "unfortunately still accurate." The report called on ranking systems to be more transparent, evidence-based and timely.

And some metrics, such as readmissions, are flawed, Saini said. 

"Imagine you’ve had surgery for something and you’re discharged with a great outcome," Saini said. "If you’re discharged to a home with family, other caregivers and your home is one floor, whether you get readmitted is going to be very different if you have a different living situation with not a lot of resources. The odds of being readmitted then are much greater. That reflects the social conditions of the person, not what happened in the hospital."

Saini said the rankings ultimately need "more transparency."

Some hospitals have even withdrawn from being rated or filed lawsuits over them. Becker's Hospital Review reported  St. Luke’s University Health Network pulled its 14 hospitals out of the U.S. News & World Report ratings due to "misguided methodology" in 2023. And Medscape  reported in May that hospitals part of Florida-based Tenet Healthcare filed lawsuits against Leapfrog for allegedly pressuring "hospitals to participate and pay or else suffer devastating and misleading public ‘safety’ grades." The lawsuits are ongoing.  

Newsday reached out to ranking groups and hospitals for comment about the value of the ranking systems, how they are used, as well as criticisms of the ratings systems but none have responded.  

What hospital rankings and awards are out there?

There are four major entities that publish hospital rankings and ratings.

CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System

The federally run CMS system assigns hospitals between one and five stars, based on more than 100 measures collapsed into five categories: mortality, safety of care, readmissions, patient experience, and timely and effective care. The five-star rating system allows prospective patients of a hospital to view both high-level rankings and shows how it does in specific departments, according to the agency.

The latest ratings showed NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island, Catholic Health’s St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center, and Northwell’s Glen Cove Hospital, Huntington Hospital and Mather Hospital received five stars, while Nassau University Medical Center received a single star. 

U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News publishes multiple lists each year, including specialty rankings, procedure and condition ratings, and the coveted national “honor roll.” The rankings are based on outcomes, staffing, technology and surveys of doctors. See more about the ratings here.

"We look at every patient who is insured by Medicare and was hospitalized over a three- to five-year period," said Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News & World Report.

The most recent ratings showed seven Long Island hospitals among the state's best, including NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island, Northwell's Long Island Jewish Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital, Huntington Hospital and South Shore University Hospital, Catholic Health's St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center, and Stony Brook University Hospital. NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island also made the national honor roll. 

Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade

The Washington, D.C.-based Leapfrog, which issues its report in the spring and fall, evaluates more than 3,000 hospitals over a three-month period based on 27 safety measures, including hand hygiene and the frequency of hospital-acquired conditions and infections. The report grades hospitals from A to F. Hospitals voluntarily provide Leapfrog with the data, according to the agency.

No Long Island hospital scored lower than a C in the latest release.

Leapfrog launched a "Recognized Leaders in Caring for People Living with Diabetes" designation in 2025. Northwell Health’s Glen Cove, Plainview and Syosset hospitals received the honor this year.

Healthgrades

Healthgrades recognizes hospitals with a host of Quality Awards each year, including awards for patient safety, specialty excellence awards and a list of America's 250 Best Hospitals.

The organization "analyzes clinical outcomes data based on Medicare-patient records in 31 common conditions and procedures, also known as cohorts, for approximately 4,500 short-term acute care facilities nationwide" to determine America's 250 Best Hospitals.

Northwell's Mather Hospital and NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island made the 2025 list of America's 250 Best Hospitals, while Stony Brook University Hospital was named among America's 50 Best Hospitals, according to the group.

Read more about Healthgrades' methodology for each award here. 

Other designations and awards

Various organizations recognize hospitals that they find have excelled in a specific department or specialty.

Lown Hospital Index

The Lown Institute Hospitals Index ranks hospitals on their social responsibility through metrics like pay equity among staff and inclusivity.

Mather Hospital, Peconic Bay Medical Center and Glen Cove Hospital were ranked in the top 10 socially responsible hospitals in New York this year.

Read about Lown's methodology here.

Lantern Awards

The Emergency Nurses Association's Lantern Award application includes questions that focus on a hospital emergency department’s performance and outcome metrics, as well as more holistic questions that delve into the department's practices and require "brief narratives or longer descriptive exemplars that highlight an emergency department’s excellence and innovation," according to the Emergency Nurses Association’s website. Hospitals voluntarily apply for Lantern Awards. Click here for more on how the Lantern Awards are chosen.

Huntington Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital recently won Lantern Awards. 

Baby-Friendly USA

Baby-Friendly USA rates a hospital based on how well it educates and treats new mothers on how to feed their newborns, according to its website.

To earn the designation, hospitals must follow 10 steps to support successful breastfeeding and are then monitored for five years after receiving the designation to ensure compliance with standards, according to Baby-Friendly USA. 

Katz Women’s Hospital at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset is the latest Long Island hospital to receive the designation.

How do I use hospital ratings to make decisions about my care?

Hospital rankings can be a starting point, but experts and research on the topic suggest they should never be the only factor. They should “by no means be the only source” a patient considers, said Wendy Darwell, president of the Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State.

“They will never be as important as getting recommendations from your trusted providers, like your doctors," she said.

Different systems measure different things, and hospitals may shine in one specialty but lag in others. Patients are better served by cross-checking multiple ratings, prioritizing measures tied to their specific needs, and discussing questions directly with their doctors, Darwell said.

The Mayo Clinic recommends reviewing multiple sources and talking with your primary care provider before making any major decisions.

Patients should also visit the NYS Health Profiles website, which has information on all regional hospitals — such as patient satisfaction, childbirth practices, hospital-acquired infection rates and readmissions — according to Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of Health Initiatives at the New York-based Community Service Society.

"If you're going for an elective surgery and the hospital has a good rating in that specialty but bad hand hygiene, that's something to consider," she said. "You don't want to get a hospital-acquired infection."

Benjamin also recommended patients look up the physician doing their procedure or treatment.

"Ask them, 'have you published in this area? How many procedures like this have you done? What is the standard of care in this practice right now? Are you going to be doing the surgery or is a resident doing it?'" she said.

Coretta Lankford, managing researcher for health learning at nonprofit research group American Institutes for Research, suggests patients make a list of priorities before making a decision about where to go for treatment. 

The list might include insurance coverage, a hospital's distance from home and if a hospital meets the patient's needs if their primary language isn't English.

"A patient should sit down with their family and decide what's important," Lankford said.