World's Best Hospitals 2022 - South Korea

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World's Best Hospitals 2022

The world's hospitals have been the front line in medicine's constantly evolving war against COVID-19 for two years now. According to the experts who helped guide the results of our annual ranking of the World's Best Hospitals, that has meant learning to adapt to new and existing challenges quickly and improvising on the fly.

For instance, according to Dr. Gary S. Kaplan, former CEO of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and current senior vice president of CommonSpirit Health, "The pandemic has exacerbated a worldwide healthcare staffing shortage, especially in nursing."

David Bates, chief of general internal medicine and primary care at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital (No. 17 on Newsweek's Best Hospitals Global Leaders list) says, "We had to very rapidly convert beds to ICU beds, and close large sections of the hospital, then come up with staff to cover those beds. There were also great challenges with managing our supply chain for things like ventilators and personal protective equipment."

Dr. Christoph Meier, Director of the Department of Internal Medicine at University Hospital Zurich (No. 15 on our Global Leaders list) says, "Many lessons could be learned from COVID, such as recognizing the efficacy of virtual meetings, valuing the importance of hospital hygiene and emphasizing the importance of generalists over siloed specialization. The biggest challenge was the joint setting of individual priorities for a common goal."

Many medical institutions struggled with these and other challenges over the course of the pandemic but what has set the world's leading hospitals apart is their continued ability to deliver the highest-quality patient care and conduct critical medical research even as they focused on battling COVID. Indeed, as the fourth annual ranking of the World's Best Hospitals by Newsweek and Statista shows, consistency in excellence is the hallmark of these institutions, with familiar names dominating the list and top spots.

The hospitals that have fared best during the pandemic are those that have learned to work faster by communicating better and breaking down internal silos, according to Dr. Gregory Katz, professor of Innovation & Value in Health at the University of Paris School of Medicine: "A critical facilitator of velocity is broad participation from hospital teams. If there is one thing we take away from our fight against COVID-19, it's the value of preparation. For hospital leaders, it's all about choice, not chance."

Dr. Jens Deerberg-Wittram, CEO and president of Romed Kliniken, a German nonprofit health system, says much of that preparation comes down to being ready to pay for the nuts-and-bolts necessary to take of very sick people. "We learned over the pandemic," he says, "that those hospitals truly make a difference in a global crisis who are running expensive and resource-intense infrastructure like emergency departments, ICUs, ECMO [extracorporeal membrane oxygen machines] et cetera."

How do the leading hospitals maintain their top status in the midst of a global pandemic that has turned the medical world upside down? The ability and drive to continually innovate is key—and top talent is at the heart of that. As Bates says, "Premier hospitals remain strong largely by attracting the best people, those who are focused on developing new approaches to care and making care better."

Kaplan adds, "Top hospitals maintain their excellence by having clear and embraced missions and aspirational visions leading to constancy of purpose that is lived daily by all staff. This must be coupled with leadership constancy and consistency that creates alignment from the boardroom to the front line of care."

According to Deerberg-Wittram, "A certain intellectual mindset, an academic culture, a strong focus on patient outcomes and an inspiring environment for young talents are the ingredients for a premier hospital that lasts over decades."

This year's rankings represent an expanded universe, with three new countries on the list—Colombia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—bringing the total to over 2,200 hospitals in 27 countries. And the results show a remarkable cross-section of excellence across the world: Twenty one countries are represented in the global top 150. The U.S. leads with 33 hospitals, followed by Germany with 14; Italy and France with 10 each; and South Korea with eight. Overall, there were 13 new hospitals in this year's top 100. Among the biggest movers from last year's rankings were No. 14 Universitätsspital Basel, up from 35 last year; No. 28 Northwestern Memorial Hospital (58 in 2021); No. 43 Seoul's Samsung Medical Center (73) and No. 59 New York's NYU Langone Hospitals (86).

The goal of this study is to provide the best data-based comparison of hospital reputation and performance across countries. We hope this will be useful not only to patients and families seeking the best care for themselves and loved ones, but also to hospitals as they benchmark themselves against their peers during a period of unprecedented change.

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World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Top 250
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - United States
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Australia
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Austria
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Belgium
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Brazil
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Canada
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Colombia
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Denmark
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Finland
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - France
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Germany
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - India
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Israel
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Italy
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Japan
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Mexico
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Netherlands
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Norway
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Saudi Arabia
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Singapore
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - South Korea
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Spain
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Sweden
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Switzerland
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Thailand
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - Top Specialized
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - United Arab Emirates
World's Best Hospitals 2022 - United Kingdom

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Licensing Information: If your hospital is listed above, you can find out more about the licensing options visiting the Statista website.

Global Board of Medical Experts:

The global board of medical experts was founded by Statista to support the World's Best Hospitals Project. The board is an independent body that is tasked with the continuous development of the quality and scope of the project. Current members of the board of experts are listed here.

Methodology

The World's Best Hospitals 2022 ranking lists the best hospitals in 27 countries: U.S.,- Germany, Japan, South Korea, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Canada, India, Australia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Austria, Thailand, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Israel, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Colombia.The countries were selected based on multiple comparability factors, such as standard of living/life expectancy,population size, number of hospitals and data availability. The lists are based on three data sources:
1. Over 80,0000 medical experts (doctors, hospitals managers, health care professionals) in 27 countries were invited to participate in the online survey. Participants were asked to recommend hospitals in their own country as well as in other countries. Recommendations for own employer/ hospital were not allowed.
2. Results from patient experience surveys. Publicly available data from existing patient surveys was used to analyze patient experience.Patient surveys are typically conducted by insurance companies among patients after hospitalization. Examples of survey topics include: general satisfaction with hospital, recommendation of hospital and satisfaction with medical care.
3. Medical key performance indicators (KPIs) on hospitals e.g., data on quality of treatment and hygiene measures.KPIs from a variety of public sources were collected for most countries. KPIs differ between the countries. Examples of included data are data on quality of care for specific treatments, data on hygiene measures and patient safety and data on number of patients per doctors and per nurse.

Scores were calculated for each hospital in each of the three categories and weighted: Peer recommendation (50% national, 5% international), patient experience (15%), medical KPIs (30%).

Every hospital in each country is rated by a score. Scores are only comparable between hospitals in the same country, because different sources for patient experience and medical KPIs were examined in each country. Since it was not possible to harmonize this data, cross-country comparisons of the scores are not possible (a score of 90 in country A doesn't necessarily mean that this hospital is better than a hospital with a score of 87 in country B).

The preliminary rankings were sent to an international network of medical journalists for plausibility checks. A global board of renowned medical experts validated the rankings.

The number of hospitals awarded in each country varies based on the number of hospitals and data availability in the respective country. The U.S. had the most hospitals awarded with 420, while Israel and Singapore were represented with 10 hospitals each. In total, more than 2,200 hospitals were ranked for this fourth edition of the ranking.

The online edition of this study includes a Global Top 250 list. The list includes a ranking of the 150 best global hospitals, ranks 151–250 are sorted alphabetically. The top 150 were determined by the number of international recommendations received and their national rank. Ranks 151 through 250 consist of the next best hospitals in each country. They are sorted alphabetically because the data is too heterogeneous between countries to allow for further cross-country comparison. The global list does not include specialized hospitals.

The rankings are comprised exclusively of hospitals that are eligible regarding the scope described in this article. A mention in the ranking is a positive recognition based on peer recommendations and publicly available data sources at the time. The ranking is the result of an elaborate process which, due to the interval of data-collection and analysis, is a reflection of the last calendar year. Furthermore, events preceding or following the period 01/01/2021–12/31/2021 and/or pertaining to individual persons affiliated/associated to the facilities were not included in the metrics. As such, the results of this ranking should not be used as the sole source of information for future deliberations. The information provided in this ranking should be considered in conjunction with other available information about hospitals or, if possible, accompanied by a visit to a facility. The quality of hospitals that are not included in the rankings is not disputed. The full rankings and methodology are available online.

Download the methodology overview here.
Download the extended methodology here.

Disclaimer:
The rankings are comprised exclusively of hospitals that are eligible regarding the scope described in this article. A mention in the ranking is a positive recognition based on peer recommendations and publicly available data sources at the time. The ranking is the result of an elaborate process which, due to the interval of data-collection and analysis, is a reflection of the last calendar year. Furthermore, events preceding or following the period 01/01/2021-31/12/2021 and/or pertaining to individual persons affiliated/associated to the facilities were not included in the metrics. As such, the results of this ranking should not be used as the sole source of information for future deliberations. The information provided in this ranking should be considered in conjunction with other available information about hospitals or, if possible, accompanied by a visit to a facility. The quality of hospitals that are not included in the rankings is not disputed.

Footnotes:
1 - No medical KPI was used to determine the score for these hospitals. Their scores relies on patient satisfaction data and recommendations from medical experts.
2 - No patient satisfaction data was used to determine the score for these hospitals. Their scores relies on results from medical KPIs and recommendations from medical experts.