U.S. News & World Report has released its annual list of the best hospitals in the U.S. for 2010-11. So which hospital received the most points and ranked the highest in this year’s list? Once again, it’s Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, which has held the No. 1 spot for the last 20 years.

Out of nearly 5,000 hospitals reviewed, only 152 made the cut. Each of these hospitals appears in the rankings for at least one of the 16 specialties, ranging from cancer to diabetes to heart surgery. Scores were based on objective and subjective measures such as death rates, patient safety, and reputation. U.S. News says it publishes the Best Hospitals list each year to help patients who need high-stakes care because of the complexity of their condition.

These 14 hospitals, in order by most points overall, made the “honor roll” list for ranking near the top in at least six of the specialties:

    1. Johns Hopkins Hospital ( Baltimore , Md. )
    2. Mayo Clinic ( Rochester , Minn. )
    3. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
    4. The Cleveland Clinic
    5. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
    6. New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell
    7. University of California, San Francisco Medical Center
    8. Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis
    9. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
    10. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
    11. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
    12. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle
    13. UPMC-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
    14. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor

The list is based on various factors, including: the hospitals' reputation among board-certified physicians; quality-of-care measures such as ratio of nurses to patients; and in-hospital death rates for Medicare patients after taking into consideration the severity of the patients' illness.

The magazine also ranked hospitals for 16 specialties. And here are the No. 1 hospitals in each specialty category:

    1. Cancer: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston
    2. Diabetes & Endocrinology: Mayo Clinic, Rochester
    3. Ear, Nose & Throat: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
    4. Gastroenterology: Mayo Clinic, Rochester
    5. Geriatrics: Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York
    6. Gynecology: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
    7. Heart & Heart Surgery: Cleveland Clinic
    8. Kidney Disorders: Mayo Clinic, Rochester
    9. Neurology & Neurosurgery: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
    10. Ophthalmology: Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami
    11. Orthopedics: Hospital for Special Surgery, New York
    12. Psychiatry: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
    13. Pulmonology: National Jewish Health, Denver
    14. Rehabilitation: Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
    15. Rheumatology: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
    16. Urology: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore

To see the entire list and a detailed description of the analysis in the specialties, visit the U.S. News website at: US News - Health

Source: WebMD