Becoming great: 5 common characteristics of the best hospitals

• U.S. News & World Report named its 2026-2027 Best Hospitals Honor Roll on August 4, 2026, recognizing the top 20 adult hospitals in the nation based on patient outcomes, nursing quality, and patient experience. 
• 18 of the 20 honored hospitals rely on Spok for clinical communication, continuing a decade-long trend of Best Hospitals Honor Roll organizations trusting Spok solutions. 
• Five shared traits set these top-ranked hospitals apart: a patient-first culture, compassionate care delivery, a systematic commitment to excellence, a drive toward innovation, and dependable clinical communication technology. 

The U.S. News & World Report released the full list of  2026-2027 Best Hospitals Honor Roll on August 4, 2026. The 20 adult hospitals are the top-ranked hospitals in the nation.  

What do these hospitals have in common? The U.S. News & World Report methodology will tell you that they are, objectively, the best: Researchers analyze extensive data on key quality metrics of hospital performance, including patient outcomes, nursing quality, and patient experience.    

But that inherently begs the question: How were these hospitals able to achieve such impressive results in the first place? How did they become great?   

Through our longstanding relationships with nearly every one of these prestigious organizations, Spok is honored to have a front-row seat to how they operate and insight into how they’re able to perform and deliver at such a high level. These are the top five characteristics that all the Best Hospitals embody every day:   

1. Put patients first   

It’s one thing to say you put patients first. It’s completely different to actually embed that mantra into every department and interaction.   

Whether it’s something as simple as posting a wayfinding sign to guide patients to the right place, or as complex as implementing  enterprise technology  for clinicians, at every turn these hospitals are asking ‘How will this impact our patients?’   

Every employee, regardless of role, has a patient-centric mindset; ‘patients come first’ is embedded in the organization’s culture. 

2. Deliver compassionate care   

Patients enter through hospital doors at the most vulnerable time in their lives; they’re looking not only to get better, but also seeking comfort. They’re searching for reassurance from healthcare professionals who will communicate with them directly and honestly, explain ‘here’s what we’re going to do’, and know they’re not alone in the battle they’re facing.   

The best hospitals deeply understand that empathy is a critical component of delivering exceptional patient care. They approach each patient as an individual, not a number or a disease or a condition. They treat them, and their families, like they would want their own loved ones to be treated.   

3. Commit to excellence   

These organizations didn’t land on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll by accident. The overwhelming majority have been on the list before—sometimes for years, sometimes for decades.   

That speaks to a systematic, purposeful commitment to excellence. It means their staff is dedicated to reviewing and measuring everything they do on a routine basis and employing process improvements, lean methodologies, and new technologies to do it even better.   

From the C-suite leaders to the clinicians to the contact center operators, they are fully committed to delivering the best outcomes and making their communities healthier.   

4. Foster a culture of innovation   

Another differentiator of the best hospitals is the willingness to invest in innovation to propel them to new heights. This may come in the form of leveraging state-of-the-art technologies, like digitally simulated image-guided operations or machine learning to aid diagnosis, or the latest evidence-based treatments. 

It could mean continuing to improve communication and collaboration among care teams. Innovation is all about finding new ways to make care better.   

5. Trust Spok for clinical communication   

As you may have noted in our news release, hospitals honored on the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals trust Spok for clinical communication. Over the past decade, nearly every hospital named on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll has used or continues to use Spok solutions. This year, 18 of the 20 hospitals on the adult hospitals honor roll rely on Spok.   

Each organization leverages Spok solutions to facilitate smarter, faster communication among their care teams. They all use it in their own way—they each have their own unique workflows, diverse device mix, and process—but what’s most important is that they count on Spok.  

The Best Hospitals have much more in common than objective results and hard metrics. They put the patient first in everything they do, approach care with compassion and understanding, are committed to rigors required for excellence, foster a culture of innovation, and rely on Spok for communication when seconds count.