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U.S. News and World Report released hospital rankings Tuesday, Aug. 4, and three North Carolina hospitals are ranked in the top 50 by specialty:
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Top hospitals are ranked No. 1 through 50 by specialty, and hospitals that aren’t in the top 50 but are above average in a specialty are labeled high performing.
In the newly released rankings, 178 of nearly 4,500 evaluated hospitals earned at least one top-50 national ranking.
Duke University Hospital was highlighted as one of the best hospitals in the nation in last year’s U.S. News & World Report ranking, The Charlotte Observer reported.
Atrium Health is the largest provider of hospitals in the Charlotte region, the Observer previously reported. Earlier this year, Atrium Health and WakeMed announced a merger agreement, projected to improve access and affordability across the state, accelerate growth and jobs in Wake County and transform mental healthcare.
Twenty hospitals in North Carolina were labeled Best Regional Hospitals by U.S. News and World Report.
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Best Regional Hospitals are general hospitals that have achieved at least eight high-performing ratings across the 23 measured procedures and conditions, as well as maternity care. Just over 500 hospitals were recognized, including 20 in North Carolina:
U.S. News and World Report uses data from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, professional organizations, medical specialists and other sources to construct the rankings. Methodology has been tweaked over the years since the organization first started ranking hospitals in 1990.
U.S. News and World Report offers a search tool to seek out hospital rankings in your area. Prospective patients can also compare up to five hospitals side by side to see how they measure up.
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This story was originally published August 4, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline “These are the best hospitals in NC for 2026, US News says. See the full list.”
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