Each year, Healthgrades recognizes hospitals nationwide that go above and beyond for patients during their hospital stay with the Outstanding Patient Experience Award™. This year’s award recipients represent the top 15% of hospitals evaluated across ten key experience measures.
But what goes into achieving an Outstanding Patient Experience Award™?
If you’re a scientific type and want to read all the details of why our methodology is the most rigorous (and impartial), you can read the complete methodology. Otherwise, keep reading for an overview of the process.
Behind the numbers
Healthgrades’ patient experience scoring methodology is based on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) patient survey data, which is made available through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).*
The HCAHPS questionnaire is a 29-question survey sent to a random sample of hospital patients between 48 hours and six weeks post-discharge. The HCAHPS survey collects information about patients’ perspectives on the care they receive while in the hospital, enabling objective, meaningful comparisons among hospitals. Healthgrades uses HCAHPS data for several reasons, including:
- HCAHPS survey responses come from a representative sample of patients at each hospital
- The survey is a standardized data collection tool and methodology for measuring patient experience
- HCAHPS survey data allow for objective and meaningful comparisons of hospitals locally, regionally, and nationally
Healthgrades’ patient experience scoring guide
Healthgrades uses HCAHPS survey responses to 19 questions related to hospital care to form the 10 critical patient experience measures at the heart of Healthgrades’ patient experience scoring methodology:
- Overall rating: How do patients rate the hospital?
- Recommendation to family/friends: Would patients recommend the hospital to family and friends?
- Communication with doctors: How often did doctors communicate well with patients?
- Communication with nurses: How often did nurses communicate well with patients?
- Responsiveness of hospital staff: How often did patients receive help quickly from hospital staff?
- Communication about medicines: How often did staff explain medicines before giving them to patients?
- Cleanliness: How often were patients’ rooms and bathrooms kept clean?
- Quietness: How often was the area around patients’ rooms kept quiet at night?
- Discharge information: Were patients given information about what to do during their recovery at home?
- Care transition: How well did hospital staff communicate with patients about their health and care needs as they left the hospital?
For the overall rating question, patients respond on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being worst and 10 being best. Healthgrades then compares the percentage of patients who gave their hospital a high overall rating (9 or 10) to the national average of patients who rated their hospital highly.
For the recommendation to family/friends question, patients respond in four ways: “definitely yes,” “probably yes,” “probably no,” or “definitely no.” The percentage of patients at a given hospital who respond “definitely yes” is then compared to the national average of patients who respond “definitely yes.”
The remaining questions have four response options: “never,” “sometimes,” “usually,” and “always.” The percentage of patients who answer “always” is compared to the national average of patients who respond with “always.”
Eligibility criteria
To be eligible for a 2026 Outstanding Patient Experience Award, a hospital must be in the top 80% for clinical quality and submit at least 100 HCAHPS surveys to CMS.
Identifying the 2026 Outstanding Patient Experience Award recipients
Healthgrades follows a four-step process to determine the recipients of the 2026 Outstanding Patient Experience Award. These facilities represent the top 15% of hospitals for patient experience.
- Group eligible hospitals into four categories: Healthgrades groups eligible hospitals into four categories based on bed count and the number of conditions and procedures.
- Create z-scores for each HCAHPS measure: Create a z-score for each HCAHPS measure at each hospital to accurately compare a hospital’s performance in a given area to the average for all hospitals within each group. Nine of the ten HCAHPS measures have three possible answers indicating positive, neutral, and negative responses: “always,” “usually,” or “sometimes”/ “never”). Healthgrades disregards neutral responses for these nine questions and creates two z-scores representing positive and negative responses. For the discharge information question, which involves “yes” and “no” responses, Healthgrades creates a single z-score to represent only positive responses.
- Create an overall patient experience score: For each hospital, Healthgrades calculates a weighted average of the 19 HCAHPS z-scores to produce an overall patient experience z-score. Two measures–overall rating and recommendation to family/friends– receive more weight during the weighting process (25% each). All other scores are weighted equally and account for the remaining 50%.
- Identify the recipients of the Outstanding Patient Experience Award for 2026: Healthgrades lists hospitals in each category, from highest to lowest, based on their overall patient experience score. The top 15% of hospitals with the highest scores in their respective categories are recognized as recipients of the Outstanding Patient Experience Award.
Why Hospital Quality Matters
When it comes to choosing healthcare, quality saves lives, which is why Healthgrades is committed to delivering the most scientifically accurate and comprehensive information about doctors and hospitals, with data insights not available anywhere else. By offering easy access to data-driven hospital ratings, Healthgrades connects consumers with the right healthcare professionals and hospitals for their care needs.
For more information about how Healthgrades rates hospitals or to discuss how your hospital can promote its achievements, contact us at quality@healthgrades.com or view our full methodology.
