Nine UI Children’s Hospital specialties rank high

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa Children's Hospital has nine specialties ranked in the top 50 by U.S. News & World Report.

The 2015-2016 Best Children's Hospitals rankings, released Tuesday, show the UI Children's Hospital as the only Iowa hospital ranked in the top 50 for pediatric care.

The UI ranked in the following categories: Neonatology (23), urology (24), diabetes and endocrinology (26), nephrology (26), cardiology and heart surgery (30), orthopedics (45), cancer (47), neurology and neurosurgery (49) and pulmonology (49).

U.S. News ranks the hospitals based on clinical data, such as patient outcomes and care-related resources, gathered from a questionnaire sent to 184 pediatric hospitals. One-sixth of the score comes from annual surveys of pediatric specialists, asked where they would send the sickest children in their specialty, setting aside location and cost.

A new $292 million UI Children's Hospital, under construction since 2012, is projected to be opened in 2016. The 14-floor, 480,000-square-foot hospital is just west of the main UI Hospitals and Clinics campus and east of Kinnick Stadium.