Location: Houston

Number of beds: 1,136

CEO: George Gaston

Type of hospital: Acute care

Lists appeared on: HealthGrades, Most Wired

Hospital's website: memorialhermann.org

Like many of the hospitals on this list, Memorial Hermann Southwest's calling card is its high level of cardiac care. In May, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas named the facility a Blue Distinction Center for Cardiac Care, because, among other things, it performed at least 125 cardiac surgical procedures in the past year, and that it was fully accredited by the Joint Commission's Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP). 

Memorial Hermann Southwest also was one of only six hospitals statewide to be named a "primary stroke center," according to an article in The Courier of Montgomery County. 

"Patterned after our well-established trauma system, stroke designation will allow stroke victims to be rapidly transported to and treated in appropriate stroke-treatment facilities," said Jane Guerrero, director of the office of EMS/trauma systems coordination for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which handed out the designation. 

Memorial Hermann's non-cardiac distinctions include opening the first emergency center in the state dedicated solely to the care of seniors, and becoming the first hospital in the Houston area to offer third-eye retroscope colonoscopies. The former was done to meet the needs of the area's growing elderly population (in 2009, 17 percent of individuals in the hospital's primary service area were 55 or older). The latter helps to examine potential blind spots during colonoscopies and has increased polyp detection by 13 percent.