For the sixth year in a row, the hospital was ranked by the magazine as a leading medical center for cardiology services. Ranking eighth in the country, Emory was the only Georgia hospital included in the top 10 for cardiology, and one of just three in the Southeast.
Emory urology (#21) made the list for the third consecutive year. Ophthalmology (#16) was named for the second year in a row and was the only hospital in the state named in that category. Neurology (#35) was cited for the first time.
Rankings were based on a survey of 2,400 board-certified physicians in 16 specialties conducted by the magazine in conjunction with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. The physicians were asked to name the five hospitals they considered the best in their specialty from among the nation's 1,631 tertiary care centers. The doctors also were asked to indicate the relative importance of various attributes of good care, ranging from the quality of the medical staff and the availability of state-of-the-art technology to competent discharge planning.
Ophthalmology rankings were based entirely on this survey, together with results from the previous three years. The rankings of cardiology, urology and neurology were based on this survey, the results from the previous three years, and also two years of death rate statistics from the federal Health Care Financing Administration and nine objective indicators of quality, such as the ratio of registered nurses to beds, availability of technology important to that specialty and the mortality rates at the hospital in that specialty.
-- Marlene Goldman