Families in the D.C. region searching for specialized pediatric care have a familiar name near the top of this year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best children’s hospitals.
Related stories
Children’s National Hospital in the District earned a place on U.S. News’ “Honor Roll,” which recognizes hospitals that perform at a high level across multiple pediatric specialties. The hospital also tied for the top spot in the Mid-Atlantic region alongside Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
“It was nationally ranked in all 11 specialties that we evaluate,” Jennifer Winston, a health data scientist at U.S. News said. “It was in the top 10 for neurology and neurosurgery, neonatology, diabetes and endocrinology and cancer.”
Other regional hospitals also performed well.
“Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital in Falls Church was ranked No. 3 in Virginia and No. 16 in the Mid-Atlantic,” Winston said. “Johns Hopkins [Children’s] Center in Baltimore is ranked No. 1 in Maryland and No. 4 in the Mid-Atlantic.”
The annual rankings are designed to help parents and physicians make decisions about complex medical care for children with serious illnesses or rare conditions.
To produce the rankings, U.S. News & World Report said it collects clinical data from more than 100 children’s hospitals and surveys pediatric specialists nationwide. It said scores are based largely on quality and outcomes measures, including survival rates, patient safety, infection prevention, nurse staffing and other hospital resources. Hospitals are then ranked across 11 pediatric specialties.
According to Winston, the rankings evaluate hospitals based on resources, care delivery and clinical outcomes.
“The first is hospital resourcing, and that includes availability of staffing, technical and special resources for each specialty, delivery of healthcare, and that includes programs to prevent infection and promote best practices, and one that is particularly important to us and to parents and hospitals is clinical outcomes,” Winston said.
Since the rankings began two decades ago, U.S. News has expanded its evaluation to include children’s hospitals nationwide across 11 specialties. The latest edition also includes evaluations by specialty, state and region, plus pediatric and adolescent behavioral health programs.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.