3 hospitals on Long Island rank among the nation's best for patient outcomes

Three hospitals on Long Island have received top marks for patient outcomes, landing them on a list of the best 250 hospitals in the country, according to Healthgrades, a national health care ranking organization.

Stony Brook University Hospital, NYU Langone—Long Island in Mineola and Northwell Health-owned Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson have been named in Healthgrades’ 2026 list of the nation’s top hospitals, which puts the facilities within the top 5% of hospitals nationwide, the Denver, Colorado-based ranking group announced Tuesday. Both Stony Brook and NYU Langone Health ranked among the top 50 in the nation, while Mather was in the top 250. 

"The Healthgrades America’s Best Hospital awards focus exclusively on patient outcomes across more than 30 of the most common procedures and conditions, so the recipients must deliver strong patient outcomes to place among the nation’s leading hospitals,” Alana Biggers, a medical adviser at Healthgrades, said in a statement to Newsday.

Biggers said that for this year’s rankings, Mather was nationally recognized for its “performances across cardiac, pulmonary, and critical care services.”

The rankings come from a risk-adjusted analysis of inpatient outcomes that consider the past three years of Medicare patient data at each ranked hospital, Biggers said. Mortality and complication rates are among the major considerations in the rankings. 

NYU Langone Health's Tisch, Orthopedic, Long Island and Brooklyn hospitals consolidate its Medicare reporting data, so its designation as a top hospital applies to several facilities as opposed to one hospital location, Healthgrades said Wednesday. This year's rankings mark the 8th year in a row NYU Langone hospitals have been named among the nation's top care providers. 

"NYU Langone Health has consistently provided our patients with one high standard of care across all of our locations, delivering the best outcomes in a system with the lowest mortality rate in the country among comprehensive academic medical centers," Dr. Ilseung Cho, chief quality officer for NYU Langone Health said in a statement.

"This recognition is another validation of the fantastic work performed by our exceptional teams, who have developed trust and confidence in so many communities that have selected NYU Langone as their trusted healthcare provider," Cho said. 

For Stony Brook, which was ranked among the top 50 of hospitals in the nation for the fourth consecutive year, its cardiac, orthopedic, pulmonary, stroke and neurosciences programs “were central in their continued success as one of America’s 50 Best hospitals,” Biggers said.

“It’s a testament to the really low mortality rates and really safe care that patients get coming in here,” said Dr. Eric J. Morley, chief quality officer of Stony Brook Medicine. “We have a really strong focus on patient safety, and that’s something we take incredibly seriously every day.”

The hospital, which has about 8,000 employees, has pushed patient safety as a priority, including greater training on spotting early signs of and timely treatment of sepsis, Morley said.

“We’re very active in pushing the envelope in terms of evidence-based medicine and making sure everything we’re doing is current or cutting edged," Morley said. "That work will continue.”

Kevin McGeachy, president of Mather Hospital, said even before Northwell acquired the hospital in 2017, it long had a reputation of “always providing really good care." Since the Port Jefferson hospital, which has 2,100 employees, joined New Hyde Park-based Northwell, the state's largest private employer, the goal has been to "turbocharge" that baseline of good care, McGeachy said.

“It sounds simple on the surface, but we really focus on improving our quality outcomes across the board and focusing on a better patient experience,” he said. “We do those two things well.”

Wendy Darwell, president and CEO of the Suburban Hospital Alliance, a regional trade group representing hospitals on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, said the recognition is a high honor for local hospitals.

“There are more than 5,000 hospitals in the country, so even having two in our region” is a point of pride, Darwell said.

Still, Darwell said that rankings should only be one tool that patients use when trying to find the best place for nonemergency care. 

“There are many different health rankings out there, so consumers should look at this as a tool in their tool kit when they are making decisions on where to have planned care," she said. 

Darwell said that because different health care ranking reports can use different metrics, or weigh certain data points more than others, it can sometimes be difficult for consumers to make sense of which ranking they should pay attention to. 

For that reason, she suggests that Long Islanders always seek advice from their physicians. 

“Always start with your trusted health care provider. You also want to consider the in-network insurance providers for your coverage,” she said. “That will give you a start on making an informed decision about planned care.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story did not include NYU Langone's ranking in Healthgrades' list of top hospitals.