Modern Healthcare Presents the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals® Program Powered by Premier
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – February 3, 2026 – Premier, Inc. today announced the latest findings from the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals® program, with the full list of recognized hospitals published by Modern Healthcare.
To create the list, an objective, quantitative analysis of publicly available data was conducted to identify the top cardiovascular hospitals in the United States. The primary purpose of the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals program is to provide data-driven benchmarks that hospital leaders can use to better understand performance variation and improve care for heart patients nationwide. Hospitals do not apply to participate in the study, and recognized organizations do not pay to market this distinction.
Performance of Hospitals Recognized on the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals List
This year, based on comparisons between the study’s top performers and a peer group of similar hospitals, the analysis found that the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals delivered better results across all 21 measures, including clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, extended outcomes and patient experience.
Key national performance observations include:
- Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) inpatient mortality showed a 56 percent difference in index value between benchmark and peer hospitals (0.43 vs. 0.99, respectively).
- In complication measure results for the two surgical patient groups (CABG and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI)), the PCI group outperformed the CABG group by a 10 percent difference (31.4 percent vs. 21.4 percent, respectively).
- The CMS Care Compare 30-day mortality measure for CABG patients had the largest difference between benchmark and peer hospitals (16 percent), with index values of 2.1 vs. 2.5, respectively.
- Average cost per case showed the most notable difference in the heart failure patient group, with a 19.6 percent difference ($9,859 vs. $12,264, respectively).
These outcomes add up to meaningful differences. According to the study’s analysis, if all U.S. hospitals’ cardiovascular service lines performed at the level of this year’s 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals, the impact could include over 14,000 additional lives potentially saved, more than 27,000 additional bypass and angioplasty patients experiencing fewer complications, and over $2.0 billion in potential savings.
“Cardiovascular care is one of the most complex and impactful service lines in healthcare,” said David Zito, President of Performance Services at Premier. “The 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals program highlights organizations delivering strong outcomes while providing hospital leaders with meaningful benchmarks to help improve care.”
Methodology for the Rankings
The 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals study is based on quantitative research that uses a balanced scorecard approach, based on publicly available data, to identify the top cardiovascular hospitals in the U.S. The program focuses on short-term, acute care, nonfederal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of cardiology patients. It includes patients requiring medical management, as well as those who receive invasive or surgical procedures. Because multiple measures are used, a hospital must provide all forms of cardiovascular care, including open heart surgery, to be included in the study. Each patient group is mutually exclusive by design.
Eligible hospitals are ranked for performance across four measurement grouping areas:
All research was based on the following public data sets: Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) data, and Care Compare data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Care Compare website.
Final rank is determined based on performance for all individual measures. Hospitals are ranked within peer groups based on bed size and teaching status: teaching hospitals with cardiovascular residency programs (302), teaching hospitals without cardiovascular residency programs (348) and community hospitals (206).