Healthgrades unveils 2026 awards for top hospitals in specialty, outpatient care
The website examined data from 4,500 hospitals to name the top performers in more than a dozen specialty areas.
Healthgrades has announced its rankings of the top hospitals for specialty care and outpatient care.
NewYork-Presbyterian Queens ranked among the hospitals with the most specialty awards in Healthgrades' 2026 awards for specialty and outpatient care.
The website released its 2026 awards this morning.
Healthgrades unveiled three sets of awards this morning: its 2026 Specialty Excellence Awards, naming top performers in 16 specialty care areas; 2026 Outpatient Awards, recognizing high perofmers in areas such as orthopedic surgery; and 2026 Specialty State Rankings, which celebrates the highest-ranking hospitals in 31 states.
In addition, Healthgrades named the 100 best hospitals for specialty care in 11 specialty areas, and the top 50 hospitals for specialty care in three specialty areas. The hospitals earning recognition ranked among the top 10% of hospitals in those areas. Healthgrades examined about 4,500 hospitals across 31 common procedures and conditions.
In the specialty care awards, Healthgrades examined data in outcomes for Medicare patients from 2022 through 2024.
Alana Biggers, MD, who recently joined Healthgrades as a medical advisor, tells Chief Healthcare Executive® that she’s impressed by the depth of the analysis in examining hospitals and their outcomes in specialty care.
“We're looking at hard data over a three-year period, and seeing where the top performers are within the different hospitals and the different specialties,” Biggers says.
“Outcomes matter, and so the specialty performance is a key driver for hospital quality, and recognizing hospitals for their their care is important for people to get the quality care that they need,” she says.
The Healthgrades research team analyzed hospitals in specialty areas and took into account factors including the overall health of the patient population in a hospital’s service area. The analysis reflects if patients had a higher level of co-morbidities, which could be reflected in outcomes.
“They really did adjust for those factors and were able to see whether or not the hospital is performing better than expected, as expected, or below what is expected,” Biggers says.
Overall, Healthgrades says if all hospitals offered the high-quality care of the top hospitals in its rankings, 230,466 lives could have potentially been saved, and 183,475 complications could have been avoided.
Healthgrades also says it sees a growing gap between the hospitals with the highest rankings in its analysis and those that are landing toward the bottom.
In addition to looking into the performance of the hospitals for data in specialty and outpatient care, Biggers says patients should ask questions about the physicians performing the procedure.
Patients should also ask questions beyond their procedure, Biggers says. For patients getting a procedure, such as a knee replacement, should also ask questions about the post-surgical treatment plan.
Healthgrades also provides Patient Advocate Center in specialty care so consumers can get more information in making the best decisions to find the right care.
Patients can gain a lot of information about the specialty care available to them, and Biggers says they may be surprised at the number of good options they have near their home.
“As a consumer going in, it really will inform me on what choices I can make, the choices I should make, for whatever the procedure is going into a hospital, and giving me the confidence that I need to to go forward with whatever the procedure is,” she says.
Most awards
These hospitals received the most awards in the new Healthgrades rankings of specialty care, outpatient care, and state rankings. The number of awards is shown in parentheses.
NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, NewYork-Presbyterian, Flushing, N.Y. (34)
Morristown Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, N.J. (34)
NYU Langone Hospitals, NYU Langone Health, New York, N.Y. (34)
The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, Md. (31)
Mission Hospital, HCA Healthcare, Asheville, N.C. (29)
St. David’s Medical Center, HCA Healthcare, Austin, Texas (28)
HCA Florida North Florida Hospital, HCA Healthcare, Gainesville, Fla. (28)
Overlook Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Summit, N.J. (28)
Summa Health, Akron, Ohio (27)
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian, New York, N.Y. (27)
Good Samaritan Hospital, HCA Healthcare, San Jose, Calif. (27)
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