Introduction:Increased need for quality and cost effective healthcare has led to lay-press rankings such as U.S. News and World Report (USN). USN's “Best Hospitals” publication advertises as the go-to resource for patients seeking care. There is no specific transplantation category. Hospitals often use USN endorsements in advertising. We aimed to find if there was a correlation between USN ranking and liver and/or kidney transplantation outcomes.

Methods:Data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) database was compared to the top 50 USN “Best Hospitals” rankings for the years 2012-2018. The USN category of “Gastroenterology and GI Surgery” was used for liver transplantation and “Nephrology” was used for kidney as there is no transplant specific specialty. Patient, graft survival, and hazard ratios for both organs were analyzed with linear regression.

Results:Linear regression did not indicate correlation for liver or kidney graft or patient survival to USN rank, nor did it show correlation when hazard ratios were used to adjust for patient factors (R2 values ranged from <0.00 to 0.07). Within the top 50 hospitals for “Gastroenterology and GI Surgery”, only 41.3% of liver transplant centers scored above national average for patient survival and 44.9% for graft survival. Of the top programs for “Nephrology,” 58.9% of kidney transplant centers scored above the national average for patient survival and 54.9% for graft survival. 45.9% of the top programs for “Gastroenterology and GI Surgery” had hazard ratios greater than 1.00 for both 1-year patient survival and graft survival at 1 year. For “Nephrology,” 49.4% had hazard ratios greater than 1.00 for patient survival and 53.4% for graft survival indicating performance below expectation when adjusting for patient factors.

Conclusion:The data indicate that for kidney and liver transplantation there is no correlation between 1-year patient or graft survival and USN ranking. A majority of programs did not beat national averages. Adjusting for patient and case related factors via the hazard ratio, there is also no correlation between lay-press ranking and objective transplant outcome. The USN “Best Hospitals” rankings consider a similar criterion. The addition of transplant specific criteria could lend clarity to patients as they seek care.

CITATION INFORMATION: Shreve J., Markowiak S., Nazzal M., Ortiz J. No Correlation between US News "Best Hospitals" Rank and Outcome of Liver or Kidney Transplantation Am J Transplant. 2017;17 (suppl 3).

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