U.S. News & World Report gives top rankings to 4 Loyola specialties

Loyola University Hospital is nationally ranked in four specialties in new rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

To be nationally ranked in a specialty, a hospital must rank in the top 50 among the 4,825 hospitals that were evaluated.

Loyola's nationally ranked specialties in the 2011-2012 Best Hospitals rankings are:

• Cardiology and Heart Surgery (20th)
• Ear, Nose and Throat (35th)
• Neurology and Neurosurgery (39th)
• Urology (49th)

Loyola has been nationally ranked in Cardiology and Heart Surgery for nine years in a row, and is in the Top 20 in 2011 rankings.

The magazine ranked eight other Loyola specialties as "high performing," meaning they were among the top 25 percent of hospitals in these specialties. Loyola's high-ranking specialties are:

• Cancer
• Diabetes and Endocrinology
• Gastroenterology
• Geriatrics
• Gynecology
• Nephrology
• Orthopaedics
• Pulmonology

Top-ranking hospitals such as Loyola "are the ones you or those close to you should consider when the stakes are high," said Avery Comarow, the magazine's health rankings editor.

In metropolitan Chicago, Loyola was ranked the fourth-highest hospital overall. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, which is part of the Loyola University Health System, has two high-performing specialties in the 2011-2012 rankings - Neurology and Neurosurgery, and Urology.

The magazine said it bases its rankings on reputation, patient survival, patient safety and care-related factors such as nursing and patient services. The rankings are available at www.usnews.com/besthospitals and will be featured in the U.S. News Best Hospitals guidebook, which goes on sale Aug. 30.