Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was recently ranked among the country's best hospitals for cancer treatment, gynecology and ear, nose and throat-related medical care in the U.S. News and World Report's 2008 report of America's Best Hospitals. After a review of 5,435 centers nationwide, DHMC placed at number 44 out of 170 hospitals chosen as the nation's leading facilities for cancer care, and was ranked 38th for gynecology and 39th for ENT care.
The rankings are an important recognition of the work DHMC performs, said DHMC media relations manager Jason Aldous. The report, published annually, is gaining importance as people begin to do more research online for cancer-related care, he added.
"Considering there's almost 600,000 or 700,000 hospitals in the country, to be in that upper one percent is a significant distinction," he said.
The hospital did not expect to receive such high rankings, Aldous said. DHMC does not actively participate in surveys conducted by U.S. News and World Report, although it has received recognition in the rankings for many years, he said. Last year, DHMC received rankings within the top 50 hospitals for gynecology, cancer treatment and digestive disorders, placing 50th for gastroenterology, 36th for oncology and 34th for gynecology.
The Norris Cotton Cancer Center at DHMC has made the list of the top 170 cancer centers for eight of the past nine years, Aldous said.
Changes in ranking from year to year do not necessarily reflect the particular hospital's cancer department, and the U.S. News and World Report must have changed its ranking criteria in some way for there to be big differences, Aldous said.
"A program didn't decline in quality; it didn't increase suddenly in quality either," he said.
U.S. News and World Report's method of data collection is not perfect, Aldous said, and because of the report's yearly fluctuations, the hospital will not place much emphasis on the rankings, though they will be used in promotion for the facility.
"It's one of those things, 'take it with a grain of salt," Aldous said. "You take it for the recognition that it is. You don't discount it."
Rankings were decided based on the hospitals' reputations, mortality indexes, technology, volume, nurse staffing and other information related to patient care, according to U.S. News and World Report's website.
"They actually pull their data," Aldous said of the report. "That's something that has been a cornerstone of the methodology: this is data pulled from a variety of different sources."
From 2004-2006, DHMC saw 913 patients in need of cancer-related treatment. The hospital meets the standards set by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and has a high ratio of nurses to patients, according to the report. In addition, DHMC maintains a low mortality index and is able to perform bone-marrow transplants, image-guided radiation and other cancer treatments that require advanced technologies, the report found.
DHMC has the best cancer center in New Hampshire, according to the report, and it was the only hospital in the state to make the top 170. The report lists the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas as the country's best cancer hospital.
