This is the third year that Newsweek has partnered with Statista Inc, the respected global data research firm, to reveal the World’s Best Hospitals— and it may be our most important ranking yet.
As the events of 2020 made clear, our lives and those of our loved ones may rest on the kind of health care we have access to. The 2,000 hospitals named in this list—which covers 25 countries, including United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada —stand out for their consistent excellence, including distinguished physicians, top-notch nursing care and state-of-the-art technology.
Of course we hope that we, and you, won’t need to seek care or visit a friend or family member in any hospital this year. But if you do, this ranking of the World’s Best Hospitals 2021 can help you feel confident as you make a critical choice about medical care.
— Nancy Cooper
Global Editor-in-Chief
Licensing Information:
If your hospital is listed above, you can find out more about the licensing options visiting the Statista website.
Global Board of Medical Experts:
The global board of medical experts was founded by Statista to support the World’s Best Hospitals Project. The board is an independent body that is tasked with the continuous development of the quality and scope of the project. Current members of the board of experts are listed here.
Methodology:
The World’s Best Hospital ranking lists the best hospitals in 25 countries: USA, Germany, Japan, South Korea, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Canada, India, Australia, Mexico,
The Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Thailand, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Israel and Singapore. The countries were mainly selected based on standard of living/life expectancy, population size, number of hospitals and data availability.
The lists are based on three data sources:
• Recommendations from medical experts (doctors, hospitals managers, health care professionals)
• Results from patient surveys
• Medical KPIs on hospitals
• The number of hospitals awarded in each country varies based on the number of hospitals and data availability in the respective country. USA had the most hospitals awarded with 350, while Israel and Singapore were represented with 10 hospitals each. In total, 2,000 hospitals were ranked in this third edition of the ranking.
• Every hospital in each country is rated by a score.
Scores are only comparable between hospitals in the same country, because different sources for patient experience and medical KPIs were examined in each country. Since it was not possible to harmonize this data, cross-country comparisons of the scores are not possible (example:
A score of 90 in country A doesn’t necessarily mean that this hospital is better than a hospital with a score of 87 in country B).
• Specialized hospitals like heart or cancer hospitals differ in their offer from general hospitals, and therefore are displayed in a separate list. This list is sorted alphabetically because Hospitals with different specialties are not comparable.
U.S. hospitals were also awarded as best hospitals for infection prevention if they performed above the national average based on six different measures. This recognition is based on data from 01/01/2019 to 12/31/2019, published by CMS.
• In addition to the country lists, the study includes a Global Top 200 list. This list includes a ranking of the 100 best global hospitals, ranks 101-200 are sorted alphabetically.
For the 2021 rankings, a hospital survey was designed and sent out to hospitals. The purpose of this survey is to determine the status quo of Patient Reported Outcome Measurements (PROMs) implementation in hospitals which are represented in the ranking. PROMs will play a more significant part in future editions of the ranking.
Footnotes:
1 – No medical KPI was used to determine the score for these hospitals. Their scores relies on patient satisfaction data and recommendations from medical experts.
2 – No patient satisfaction data was used to determine the score for these hospitals. Their scores relies on results from medical KPIs and recommendations from medical experts.
3 – This hospital participated in the Statista hospital survey and is using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs).
