Click image to expand.
You can see from the map above that the 'Best Hospitals,' like the U.S. population, tend to be concentrated on the coasts. And about 60% of award-winners are located in eight states:
- California—15 hospitals.
- New York—13 hospitals.
- Pennsylvania—13 hospitals.
- Illinois—10 hospitals.
- Massachusetts—9 hospitals.
- Ohio—9 hospitals.
- Texas—9 hospitals.
- Florida—8 hospitals.
With respect to population, I was struck that there are a few mild outliers. Almost 9% of the award-winning hospitals are in Pennsylvania, more than double the proportion of U.S. residents who live there (4%). And Massachusetts has 6% of the U.S. News 'Best Hospitals,' but is home to just 2% of the nation's population.
(Of course, if you further control for other factors, like where all hospitals and med schools are, it's probably less surprising that there are so many 'Top Hospitals' in cities like Philadelphia and Boston. We've got additional coverage of the U.S. News list coming in Wednesday's Daily Briefing, so perhaps we'll break this down a bit more, if readers are interested.)