Celebrating Excellence: Healthgrades Names Leading Hospitals for Specialty Care in 2025

Healthgrades is proud to recognize outstanding achievements in hospital quality.

DENVER, Oct. 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Healthgrades, the #1 site Americans use when searching for a doctor or hospital, today announced the recipients of multiple hospital quality achievements recognizing clinical excellence in specialty care:

• 2025 Specialty Excellence Awards, which celebrate hospitals with outstanding clinical performance in 16 specialty care areas
• 2025 Outpatient Awards, expanded this year to recognize outstanding achievements in outpatient care across orthopedic surgery, joint replacement and prostate care
• 2025 Specialty State Rankings, which measure hospital performance across 18 key specialty areas to identify the highest-ranking hospitals in 31 eligible states

To help consumers make informed decisions about where to seek medical care, Healthgrades uses ratings and awards to identify hospitals that deliver consistently better-than-expected outcomes across various specialty care areas. Through these easy-to-understand clinical performance measures, Healthgrades empowers consumers to choose a hospital with a five-star rating in their procedure or condition, increasing their chance of a positive care experience. As the gap between top performers and one-star rated hospitals grows, evaluating hospital quality becomes increasingly critical. In fact, between 2021-2023, if all hospitals had performed at the level of five-star recipients:

• 224,958 lives could potentially have been saved*
• 141,692 complications could potentially have been avoided*

“Our specialty awards highlight top-performing hospitals across medical specialties, empowering consumers to find high quality care for their unique needs,” said Brad Bowman, MD, chief medical officer and head of data science at Healthgrades. “Doing your research ahead of time and understanding where you can find high quality care can positively impact your healthcare journey and overall experience.”

2025 Specialty Excellence Awards & America’s 50 and 100 Best Hospitals for Specialty Care

This year’s Specialty Excellence Awards recognize hospitals for outstanding clinical performance in 16 specialty care areas, including cardiac surgery, critical care, and stroke care.** Recipients are among the top 10 percent of hospitals specializing in these areas. Healthgrades evaluated outcomes at more than 4,500 hospitals across 31 common procedures and conditions for these awards.

From the list of Specialty Excellence Award recipients, Healthgrades recognizes America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Specialty Care for 11 specialty areas and America’s 50 Best Hospitals for Specialty Care for three specialty areas.

2025 Outpatient Awards

Unique among our specialty care awards, the Outpatient Orthopedic Surgery and Outpatient Joint Replacement Excellence Awards recognize the national leaders in outpatient care, one of the fastest-growing areas of healthcare. In recent years, the number of orthopedic procedures taking place in an outpatient environment has grown exponentially, a trend that has only accelerated since the pandemic. Healthgrades’ analysis revealed that from 2020-2023, outpatient surgical volumes significantly outpaced inpatient surgical volumes for two critical orthopedic procedures:

• Outpatient Knee Replacement volume grew 87% while inpatient volumes declined by 57% over the same period†
• Outpatient Hip Replacement volume grew 154% while inpatient volumes declined over 60% over the same period†

New this year, Healthgrades has introduced an additional achievement to reflect similar site-of-care shifts in other areas of healthcare: the Outpatient Prostate Care Excellence Award. Healthgrades is proud to offer the industry’s first outcomes-based recognitions for outpatient specialty care, connecting consumers with high quality care in any setting.

2025 Specialty State Rankings

State Rankings identify the top three or five hospitals in each eligible state across 18 key specialties. By offering specialty care rankings at the state level, Healthgrades helps consumers find and select a local hospital that excels in their condition or procedure, taking the guesswork out of finding high quality care close to home.

See the methodologies for each of the specialty awards:

• 2025 Specialty Excellence Awards Methodology
• 2025 Outpatient Awards Methodology
• 2025 Specialty State Rankings Methodology

 To further assist people in their search for outstanding specialty care, Healthgrades offers a consumer-friendly infographic overview of our complete Specialty Excellence Awards Methodology.

*Statistics are based on Healthgrades analysis of MedPAR data for 2021 through 2023 and represent three-year estimates for Medicare patients only.

**To be eligible for a Specialty Excellence Award, hospitals must receive a rating in the required procedures and conditions included in the determination of the award. Some awards, like the Cranial Neurosurgery Excellence Award™, are based on a single procedure–cranial neurosurgery–while others, such as the Cardiac Surgery Excellence Award™, are based on a grouping of procedures: heart bypass surgery and heart valve surgery. To learn more about Healthgrades ratings and awards determination process, see the 2025 Specialty Excellence Awards and Ratings Methodology.

†Statistics are based on Healthgrades analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Standard Analytic File data for 2020 through 2023.

About Healthgrades

Healthgrades is dedicated to empowering meaningful connections between patients, doctors, and hospitals. As the #1 platform for finding a doctor and a leader in healthcare transparency, we help millions of consumers each month find and schedule appointments with their healthcare professional of choice and prepare for their appointments with best-in-class, treatment-focused content.

For over 20 years, our health system, group practice, and life sciences marketing solutions have helped our partners reach and engage consumers on their way to the doctor.

Healthgrades is part of RVO Health, a partnership between Red Ventures and Optum, part of UnitedHealth Group. RVO Health has the largest consumer health and wellness audience online across its brand portfolio, including Healthgrades, Healthline, Medical News Today, Greatist, Psych Central and Bezzy, which touch every part of the health and wellness journey. RVO Health helps more than 100 million unique visitors live their strongest and healthiest lives each month.

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SOURCE Healthgrades