Stony Brook University Hospital and Northwell Health’s Mather Hospital topped the list of 13 Long Island hospitals that were recognized for their specialty care treatments, according to new rankings by Healthgrades.
Stony Brook University Hospital was ranked as one of America’s top 100 hospitals for stroke care, cardiac care, coronary intervention and joint replacement, according to Healthgrades, an online physician search and health care ranking organization.
Healthgrades’ evaluation of the hospital included data from Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital, which make up the Stony Brook Medicine health care system. Because Stony Brook reports its outcomes under one Medicare Provider ID to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, where Healthgrades gets its patient outcomes data from, they were analyzed as a single hospital for the rankings, Healthgrades said.
Mather, one of Northwell’s seven hospitals to make the rankings, was named one of the country’s best hospitals for coronary interventions and critical care.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUNDThirteen hospitals across Long Island have been recognized for offering top- notch specialty care for cardiac, stroke and neurosurgery, national rankings find.Northwell Health system received a combined total of 34 awards across its seven regional hospitals in the rankings.While rankings can be helpful, some observers say, Islanders should speak to their physicians for recommendations.
The annual rankings evaluate mortality and complication rates using Medicare data for procedures at approximately 4,500 hospitals nationwide, naming those with “superior performance” in 16 specialty areas for the 2026 Specialty Excellence Award winners. Long Island hospitals deemed awardees demonstrated excellence in areas such as pulmonary care, cardiac surgery or stroke care, according to Healthgrades.
Hospital rankings can serve as a useful tool when patients are trying to evaluate the quality of care and outcomes at local health care providers, industry observers said. But given all the variables when ranking hospitals, including size, patient population and the types of care given, rankings should only be one part of a consumer’s research into health care providers, they said.
“A hospital may be good in one area of care, but they may not specialize in the procedure you need,” she said. For that reason, Long Islanders should always “do some homework” when evaluating providers and rankings are only one piece of that research,” said Wendy Darwell, president and CEO of the Suburban Hospital Alliance, a regional trade group representing hospitals on the Island and in the Hudson Valley. “The best thing to do is to talk to your trusted physicians.”
Alana Biggers, medical adviser at Healthgrades said in a statement: “Our specialty awards identify the nation’s top-performing hospitals across numerous medical specialties, helping consumers find high-quality care tailored to their specific needs … The ability to make informed decisions about your health is a cornerstone of self-advocacy.”
Recognition of outcomes is “byproduct of incredibly hard work,” said Dr. Eric J. Morley, chief quality officer at Stony Brook Medicine. “It’s really important for the staff to be recognized for the incredible work that they do.”
Morley said, in part, Stony Brook’s expertise in those care areas comes from the frequency with which its doctors and nurses are treating Long Island’s aging population.
“We take care of quite a large number of geriatric patients,” he said. “Cardiac and neurological issues are at the core of what we take care of.”
Last year, more than 40% of patients admitted to Stony Brook University Hospital, and almost a quarter of emergency department visits were from patients 65 or older, according to figures from Stony Brook Medicine.
With the majority of hospitals on the list, the Northwell Health system received a combined total of 34 awards across its seven regional hospitals in the rankings.
The hospitals include:
“It just reflects our overall commitment to total care of patients across our large health system.” said Dr. Peter Silver, senior vice president and chief quality officer at Northwell.
Rankings aren’t without limitations though, industry observers said.
“It’s fair to say that anytime a hospital gets a strong rating or award from one of ranking entities that’s real validation of the good work that’s being done there,” Darwell said.
But Darwell said rating entities, be they Healthgrades, U.S. News & World Report or the Leapfrog Group, can sometimes add to the confusion when local patients are looking for the best provider, even if their intention is “a good one.”
“They intend to simplify things for consumers because health care is very complex,” Darwell said. “But in the attempt to simplify, they can also make it more complex.”
Darwell said with so many organizations providing ratings based off different data sources and using different methodologies, there is often very little overlap between ranking lists, making it harder for consumers to get clear answers on which hospital or provider would be best.