Best hospitals in every state
While the United States offers some of the highest-quality health care in the world, it's also supremely unaffordable for many of the country's residents. A March 2024 survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that half of U.S adults find it difficult to afford health care costs, with one in four saying they or someone in their household struggled to pay for care in the last year. This combination of facts leads many Americans to agonize about the places they can turn to for excellent-yet-wallet-friendly care when they need it.
Stacker determined the three best hospitals in every state by analyzing the Lown Institute Hospitals Index, released in September 2021. That index includes a metric called "civic leadership" in its scoring system, which accounts for a hospital's charity care, financial aid, staff pay, and other community-minded factors. The other major components of the index are "patient outcomes," meaning the hospital's performance in tending to patients and giving them comfortable experiences, and "value of care," meaning the hospital's prioritization in taking care of patients' wallets along with their bodies by avoiding unnecessary procedures. You can read more about the index's methodology here.
Whether you're seeking care for COVID-19, a long-term illness, new conditions, or simply need to visit an emergency room, you can be sure that these hospitals offer high-quality and safe care without ignoring patients' financial realities. Whether a 23-bed rural hospital or an industry leader like Johns Hopkins Hospital, these medical centers consistently demonstrate why they're the best in the country.
