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In recent years, we have grown to appreciate the value regional rankings could have for families seeking hospital-based pediatric care. Such care often requires long-term followup, and extended travel affects the whole family. Not surprisingly, parents tend to seek pediatric hospital care close to home, often within the state where they reside and occasionally in a neighboring state. The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed unprecedented complications to travel, adding to the reasons for many families with sick children to seek care close to home.

This year, U.S. News will expand its Best Children’s Hospitals rankings by introducing two new regional rankings that will be based on whether hospitals rank among the best across the 10 pediatric specialties. Hospitals will continue to be ranked nationally in each of the 10 specialties and the existing pediatric Honor Roll. Like that Honor Roll, the new regional rankings will compare hospitals on overall performance across all pediatric specialties, with the aim of helping families identify high-quality pediatric centers near home. Specialty hospitals, including pediatric specialty hospitals, will continue to be evaluated in the specialty rankings but will not be eligible for the regional rankings.

State rankings. Beginning with the release on June 15, 2021, of the 2021-22 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings, U.S. News will publish an annual ranking of children’s hospitals in each state (and the District of Columbia), provided that the state has at least one hospital that offers general pediatric services and is nationally ranked in at least one pediatric specialty.

Multi-state region rankings. Many families reside in states that may not have even a single ranked children’s hospital. For them, among others, traveling across state lines or within a few hours drive to seek pediatric care may be worth considering, depending on the needs of the child. To help such families, U.S. News will publish children’s hospital rankings in each of seven proposed multi-state regions (see map), in addition to the state rankings. We chose these regions because we want to cluster hospitals in such a way that families could make meaningful decisions about the best location of care and reasonable travel distances. Each hospital that’s ranked in a state will also be ranked in the multi-state region to which its state belongs.

Grouping states into regions requires making judgments, and no such geographical grouping will be perfect for all families. The map depicts the geographical definitions we intend to use for each multi-state region. We welcome feedback, which we will review before determining whether to make any modifications to our proposed region definitions. While some regions may possess more or fewer ranked children’s hospitals than others, we aim to define the regions such that most families will be able to find excellent hospital care for their child within the region where they live.

Rules for assigning numerical rankings. Numerical rankings in each region will be assigned using rules that broadly parallel how U.S. News determines the Best Regional Hospitals rankings among general acute-care hospitals. Accordingly, Best Children’s Hospitals will be rank-ordered in each state and multi-state region based on the total number of pediatric specialties in which each hospital is ranked among the top 50 nationally. For this purpose, no distinction will be made between a hospital that’s ranked No. 1 in a specialty and a hospital ranked No. 50. Better regional rankings will be awarded to hospitals with more national rankings in the 10 pediatric specialties. Two hospitals in the same region will receive the same regional ranking (tie) if they have the same number of pediatric specialty rankings, unless one or both hospitals are on the Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll. Within a region, a higher regional ranking will be given to a hospital that’s on the Honor Roll than to a hospital that’s not, and to a hospital that’s higher on the Honor Roll compared to a hospital appearing lower on the Honor Roll. In summary:

As always, U.S. News and its research contractor RTI International welcome input from families, clinicians and hospital leaders. Those who wish to share feedback may submit it to the Best Children’s Hospitals project team by email.