Cohen Children's Medical Center is No. 2 pediatric hospital in NY: U.S. News

Cohen Children’s Medical Center has been named one of the best children’s hospitals in New York for the 17th year in a row.

The New Hyde Park facility, part of the Northwell Health network, ranked second on U.S. News & World Report’s list of New York’s best hospitals for children, the news outlet said in a report to be released Wednesday. Cohen Children’s also ranked seventh in the mid-Atlantic region.

The top spot on the New York list went to New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell, U.S. News said. The hospitals ranking third through fifth in the state were Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital in Manhattan, Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx and Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone in Manhattan.  

In national rankings for pediatric care, the 202-bed Cohen Children’s was named to the top-50 lists for eight specialty categories: cancer, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and GI surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, pulmonology and lung surgery and urology.

Cohen Children’s says it is the state’s largest provider of pediatric health services and its largest pediatric Level 1 trauma center, offering trauma research, training and services.

"We've been working hard at recruiting the right people, enhancing the depth and breadth of what we do across the board," Dr. Charles Schleien, senior vice president and chair of pediatric services at Cohen Children’s, said Wednesday. The hospital is focused not on improving its performance in the ranking, he said, but on "doing the kinds of things that evolve into great rankings."

More than three years after the COVID-19 pandemic first hit New York, the hospital remains busier than ever, he said. "We continue to set all-time records in our emergency department visits," with patients seeking treatment for infectious diseases, trauma, mental health issues and other health problems, Schleien said. "The state of mental health, particularly in children and adolescents, couldn't be more serious."

U.S. News deemed Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center the No. 1 pediatric hospital in the country out of the 199 pediatric facilities surveyed for this year’s list. The rankings are based on surveys submitted by participating hospitals, as well as information from groups including the National Cancer Institute.

The news outlet said it has made changes to its methodology, including placing less emphasis on expert opinions as reflected on physician surveys, and more on measures such as commitment to best practices and commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.

“Parents of sick children face many difficult challenges, including how to identify the best children’s hospital to treat their illness or condition," Ben Harder, chief of health analysis and a managing editor at U.S. News, said in a statement. “The rankings, which are increasingly determined by objective measures of hospital quality, can help them make informed decisions.”

By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott is a reporter on the investigations desk. Since starting at Newsday in 2012, she has also covered real estate and the business of health care.