Akron Children’s ranks in 2 categories in study

Staff report

BOARDMAN

Akron Children’s Hospital has ranked in the top 50 of children’s hospitals in two pediatric specialties: urology and neonatology.

U.S. News & World Report, the global authority in hospital rankings, today released the 2017-18 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings. The 11th annual Best Children’s Hospitals rankings are a source of comprehensive, quality-related information on U.S. pediatric centers.

The new edition highlights the top 50 centers in each of these 10 pediatric specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology.

Akron ranked 35th in neonatology and 30th in urology.

“We congratulate our neonatology and urology teams for being ranked by U.S. News and World Report for 2017,” said Beth Smith, Akron Children’s vice president for marketing and public relations. “Several previously ranked specialties at Akron Children’s Hospital are not included on the list, and we’ll definitely explore the data more closely. The U.S. News yardstick changes every year and sometimes it works in our favor and other times not, but our commitment to providing the highest quality health care has been unwavering through the years.”

In 2016, the hospital ranked in six categories: No. 46 for cancer; No. 32 for diabetes and endocrinology; No. 24 in neonatology; No. 42 in neurology and neurosurgery; No. 41 in pulmonology; and No. 41 in urology.

“We do not consider this in any way to be a reflection of success of those programs nor do we design programs around the ever-changing methodologies of various ranking entities,” Smith said.

Hospitals ranking in the top 10 this year are: Boston Children’s Hospital; Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston; Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore; Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles; Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago; Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus; Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC; and Children’s National Medical Center in Washington D.C.