In this new edition, in which the impact of the pandemic is evident in the scores of dimensions such as human capital and efficiency, we present four new rankings by medical specialty in Cardiology, Oncology, Gynecology and Pediatrics.

The SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic has caused the largest movement of health human resources, infrastructure and finance in modern times. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, which represent the greatest expression of institutionality with global scope and ambition, produce a joint annual report called the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board Report , in the latest version of which the conclusion is simple: there is a failure of multifactorial causes that makes it impossible to maintain that we are institutionally, nationally or globally prepared to face a pandemic. Already in 2019, this same report warned of the lack of robust national systems and shared health data and indicators, which was described as “unacceptable.”

According to periodic data from Johns Hopkins University, in 2021 Latin America has four of the 10 countries with the highest number of deaths from coronavirus globally: Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Colombia. This year AméricaEconomía Intelligence continued the survey on institutions' responses to COVID-19 , a topic that you can review in detail on the attached page.

Additionally, it is very special for us to fulfill this year a desire that we know is shared with the community of hospitals that participate in the ranking: to generate separate measurements by medical specialty. In this first version we will present the best 20 hospitals by specialty , within the group that participated in the general ranking. The specialties measured are Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Oncology and Hemato-Oncology, Pediatrics and Gynecology-Obstetrics. We hope this is the beginning of deeper measurements of each specialty in the future and a permanent addition to accompany our overall ranking.

See also: "Ranking of the Best Hospitals 2021: Ranking of specialties"

Considering the complexities of measuring a year that received the full impact of the COVID emergency and adapting our methodology to that impact, while continuing to introduce improvements in the indicators, we believe it is important to thank the efforts made by all the institutions that participated in making the information available. necessary, along with permanent technical communication.

Overall ranking

This year's final list is made up of 61 hospitals from 11 Latin American countries, which were above the minimum cut of 40 points in their quality index, which allows us to classify them among the best in the region. Once again, private hospitals are the majority (67%), followed by private university hospitals (23%), public university hospitals and public non-university hospitals (5% each).

As is traditional, the Albert Einstein Hospital (1st) in São Paulo leads our ranking, and this year it also leads the dimensions of human capital and capacity, but with declines in safety and efficiency indicators, due to the pandemic. It is followed by the Clínica Alemana (2nd) in Santiago, which leads the dimension of patient experience and dignity, and improves in capacity. However, like the leader, the pandemic affects its position in terms of safety and efficiency. The rest of the top 5 presents important novelties since the Italian Hospital of Buenos Aires (3rd) climbs two positions to third place. This is because it presents improvements in safety and human capital indicators, and above all improvement in the efficiency dimension relative to the rest of the group, this despite the pandemic. In fourth place remains, as it did three years ago, the Valle del Lili Foundation (4th) of Cali, leading the efficiency ranking in this year of pandemic, and with improvements in the dimension of capacity and the dimension of experience and dignity of the patient. The select group of the first five closes with the Fundación Cardioinfantil (5th), also from Colombia, which improves in knowledge management, but has low indicators of human capital and efficiency.

It is very interesting to analyze in aggregate, in the entire group of participants, the impact of the pandemic on the dimensions analyzed by the ranking. For example, we see that the average human capital index decreased by 14% in relation to the previous edition that used data collected by the institutions as of December 31, 2019. This decrease fully reflects the urgency of incorporating and redeploying personnel very quickly. health. Another dimension that shows an evident impact is the efficiency dimension, which drops 9% from one year to the next. Clearly, the uncontrollable wave of hospitalization of patients with acute respiratory syndromes caused by COVID impacted hospital and financial efficiency performance. The other side is presented by the knowledge management dimension, also due to the need to generate research and disseminate information about COVID-19; This dimension increased its average by 15%.

See also: "Ranking of the Best Hospitals 2021: COVID survey results"

It is important to add the methodological changes that, without a doubt, also affected the results of the indicators mainly in the dimensions of human capital and hospital efficiency. In the latter we have added new indicators, which measure major outpatient surgeries and the human resources associated with the beds of each establishment. In terms of human capital, we have considered new aspects of health care, such as the presence of professionals who take shifts and direct patient care, in addition to considering the rest of the non-medical professionals, so important for achieving the objectives in health.

*This research had the collaboration of Ana Paula Silva, Paulina Vargas and Paz Hernandez.

To review significant data, click on each institution.