For the 22nd consecutive year, Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH) ranks as one of the United State’s top hospitals on U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals list. LVH occupies the No. 5 place among Pennsylvania’s top hospitals.

The 2017-18 list names LVH among the nation’s Top 3 percent of leading hospitals in gastroenterology and GI surgery. This is the 12th time this specialty has made the Best Hospitals list. LVH is the only hospital in the area to make the U.S. News national rankings in at least one specialty area every year since 1996.

“Our unwavering pursuit of better care, better health and better cost drives our health network to continuously monitor, measure, and improve how we are serving our patients and community,” said Brian Nester, DO, MBA, FACOEP, LVHN’s president and chief executive officer.

“For more than two decades, these efforts have been recognized among the best in the nation, an achievement without equal in our area, and one that truly showcases our exceptional caregivers delivering outstanding patient care every day,” said Nester.

Geriatrics; nephrology; neurology and neurosurgery; orthopedics; pulmonology; and urology were rated as “high-performing” at Lehigh Valley Hospital in the report.

Lehigh Valley Hospital and Lehigh Valley Hospital - Muhlenberg are recognized among the Best Hospitals in Northeastern Pennsylvania-Lehigh Valley. Lehigh Valley Hospital - Muhlenberg ranks 23rd among hospitals in the state.

U.S. News evaluates hospitals in 16 adult specialties. In most specialties, it ranks the nation’s Top 50 hospitals and recognizes other high-performing hospitals that provide care at nearly the level of their nationally ranked peers.

U.S. News methodologies in most areas of care are largely based on objective measures such as risk-adjusted patient survival and readmission rates, volume, patient experience, patient safety and quality of nursing, among other care-related indicators.

The specialty rankings and data were produced for U.S. News by RTI International, a research organization based in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

Lehigh Valley Health Network includes eight hospital campuses, three in Allentown including the region’s only facility dedicated to orthopedic surgery, and one hospital in Bethlehem, East Stroudsburg, and Hazleton, and two hospitals in Pottsville; 22 health centers in seven counties; numerous primary and specialty care physician practices and 15 ExpressCARE locations throughout the region.

Specialty care includes: trauma care at the region’s busiest trauma center treating adults and children, burn care at the regional Burn Center, kidney and pancreas transplants, perinatal-neonatal, cardiac, cancer care, orthopedics, and neurology and complex neurosurgery capabilities, including national certification as a Comprehensive Stroke Center.

Lehigh Valley Children’s Hospital, the only children’s hospital in the region, provides care in 28 specialties and general pediatrics.

Lehigh Valley Hospital - Cedar Crest has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report for 22 consecutive years as one of America’s Best Hospitals.

LVHN’s Cancer Institute is a formal member of the Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Alliance, an initiative to improve the quality of care and outcomes for persons with cancer.

The rankings have been published at http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals.

Also, the rankings will appear in print in the U.S. News Best Hospitals 2018 guidebook, expected to be available in mid-September.

Information: lvhn.org