Voting now open for annual Best Hospitals rankings
Each year US News & World Report issues their rankings of best hospitals and children’s hospitals. 2018 will once again include a reputation component in the scoring methodology. Over the past several years, the weight given to the reputation scores has decreased with more emphasis placed on actual quality metrics such as mortality, patient safety, and technologies. In recent years, the survey method has also changed to include an online survey administered via Doximity. Doximity is an online network of over half a million US Healthcare professionals.
Why should you vote? As more physicians vote using Doximity, the reputation gap has begun to close. That means the larger academic medical centers aren’t able to garner rankings based on reputation scores alone. After all, shouldn’t quality rankings be based on the quality of care provided, not how a small segment of the physician base votes?
If you are a physician who has claimed your Doximity profile, you may receive an invitation to participate in this year’s survey. Invitations began going out on Feb. 16 and will continue over the next few weeks. Voting is open for defined periods only as outlined in the invitation. You are permitted to vote for multiple institutions within your specialty. Each survey is specialty specific. You can check the Doximity site to see if your specialty is represented.
You can vote in a couple of ways:
- By directly by logging in to your Doximity account (if you are a member). Be sure to vote by Thursday, March 22. If you did not receive an email but are eligible to vote, you can access the survey by claiming your account and logging in to the Doximity website.
- U.S. News continues to mail ranking surveys to approximately 3,200 voting-eligible specialists. If you do not receive the digital survey, please watch your mail from the U.S. Postal Service for an envelope from U.S. News and return it in the envelope that was provided.
Again, the deadline for returning the digital and print surveys is March 22. Please vote in support of the national recognition due to WVU Medicine's outstanding specialty programs.