AARP comes out with top hospitals list

A list of the top "out-of-town" hospitals was recently compiled by the AARP in what is meant to serve as a guide for patients who travel for care. The list, which is featured in the May/June issue of AARP The Magazine, is broken down by specialty. For example, the Cleveland Clinic is listed as one of the top "Heart, General" hospitals, while the Mayo Clinic is listed as a top facility for "Mystery Diagnoses." One of the nation's top neurosurgery facilities is Duke University Hospital, and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is among the best "Cancer, General" hospitals. 

The magazine also recently rolled out an interactive map online that lists the top-ranked hospitals by geographic region. All of this research is part of a larger project--the Consumer's Guide to Hospitals--which is being created by Consumer's Checkbook, and ranks hospitals in the 53 largest metro areas in the United States. 

Doctors from all over the country were surveyed, and 140,000 ratings of hospitals were used. The physicians were asked if and where they would recommend patients travel for extreme situations. 

For more information:
- here's the Healthcare Finance News article [1]

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