U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday released its 33rd annual "Best Hospitals" rankings, with Mayo Clinic topping the publication's "Honor Roll" for the seventh year in a row.

This year, 164 hospitals were ranked in at least one data-driven or expert opinion-based Best Hospitals specialty. Another 17 specialty hospitals that closely coordinate care with a partner hospital shared one or two specialty-specific rankings with that partner.

Cheat sheet: See how US News calculates its ratings

This year's list

For the 2022-2023 list, U.S. News drew from the 4,515 hospitals and health care facilities included in the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey of Hospitals.

U.S. News evaluated facilities across 15 specialties. On the latest list, 164 hospitals ranked in at least one specialty.

The publication also named 20 facilities to its "Honor Roll" for achieving strong performance ratings in multiple specialties.

How hospitals were ranked

To qualify as one of the top specialty hospitals, hospitals must meet one of the following criteria:

• Be a teaching hospital

• Be affiliated with a medical school

• Have at least 200 staffed beds

• Have at least 100 staffed beds and offer four or more types of medical technology

U.S. News ranked three of the 15 specialties—ophthalmology, psychiatry, and rheumatology—based on a survey of experts.

For the other 12 specialties, U.S. News determined the rankings based largely on federal and industry data. The 12 data-driven specialties are:

• Cancer

• Cardiology & heart surgery

• Diabetes & endocrinology

• Ear, nose, & throat

• Gastroenterology & GI surgery

• Geriatrics

• Obstetrics & gynecology

• Neurology & neurosurgery

• Orthopedics

• Pulmonology & lung surgery

• Rehabilitation

• Urology

To achieve a rating in a specific specialty, hospitals had to meet a volume/discharge requirement that varied by specialty. Or, if a hospital did not meet the volume/discharge requirement, hospitals had to have received nominations from at least 1% of the specialists responding to the reputational surveys over the past three years.

According to U.S. News, 1,895 hospitals were eligible for consideration among the 12 data-driven specialties. U.S. News scored eligible facilities based on four factors (note that cardiology & heart surgery, neurology & neurosurgery, obstetrics & gynecology, and rehabilitation had slightly different methodologies, detailed below):

• Outcomes, measured by risk-adjusted mortality and the rate patients are discharged home (37.5%)

• Structure of hospital resources directly related to patient care (30%)

• Process of delivering patient care/expert opinion (27.5%)

• Patient experience (5%)

Cardiology & heart surgery programs, neurology & neurosurgery programs, and obstetrics & gynecology programs were also judged on a fifth factor: public transparency.

For cardiology & heart surgery programs and obstetrics & gynecology programs, public transparency was weighted at 3%. Process/expert opinion was weighted at 24.5% for both specialties.

For neurology & neurosurgery programs, public transparency was weighted at 2%. Process/expert opinion was weighted at 25.5%.

For rehabilitation programs, patient experience and public transparency were not considered. Instead, process/expert opinion was weighted at 55%, structure was weighted at 25%, and outcomes were weighted at 20%.

Honor roll

U.S. News recognized 20 facilities on an "Honor Roll." According to U.S. News, the facilities on the list demonstrated "exceptional treatment across many areas of care." The honor roll awardees were, in order:

1. Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN)

2. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA)

3. NYU Langone Hospitals (New York, NY)

4. Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH)

5. Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD) (tie)

5. UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA) (tie)

7. New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York, NY)

8. Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA)

9. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago, IL)

10. Stanford Heath Care-Stanford Hospital (Stanford, CA)

11. Barnes-Jewish Hospital (Saint Louis, MO)

12. UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco, CA)

13. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian (Philadelphia, PA)

14. Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, MA)

15. Houston Methodist Hospital (Houston, TX)

16. Mount Sinai Hospital (New York, NY)

17. University of Michigan Health-Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, MI)

18. Mayo Clinic-Phoenix (Phoenix, AZ)

19. Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, TN)

20. Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, IL)

(U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals rankings, 7/27; U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals methodology, accessed 7/25; U.S. News & World Report press release, 7/26)