How to Choose a Children’s Hospital

How Do I Choose the Best Children’s Hospital for My Child?

No single hospital is the best choice for every child or every condition. U.S. News & World Report recognizes 10 hospitals on its Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll and lists them alphabetically rather than ranking them No. 1 through No. 10.

Cincinnati Children’s is one of 10 hospitals recognized on the 2026–27 Honor Roll and is nationally ranked in all pediatric specialties.

A national Honor Roll designation can indicate broad pediatric excellence. Parents should also consider experience with their child’s specific diagnosis, available treatments, outcomes, expertise across the hospital, and other practical considerations.

Start With Your Child’s Condition. The best-known hospital may not have the most relevant expertise for every diagnosis. Start by identifying programs and specialists with meaningful experience treating your child’s condition.

Look for Experts Who Work Together. Children with complex conditions may need specialists from multiple areas. Learn about how those specialists collaborate and who coordinates the overall care plan.

Ask About Research and Advanced Treatment Options. For serious or difficult-to-treat conditions, ask if a hospital offers clinical trials, unique procedures or other advanced treatment options relevant to your child’s condition.

Look for Traveling Patient and Family Support. Care further from home may be the best choice for your child’s health, but that doesn’t make logistics for travel less overwhelming. You shouldn’t have to navigate this alone. Ask about resources for families coming from other states or countries.

Why Families Choose Cincinnati Children’s

Each year, families from across the country and around the world come to Cincinnati Children’s for specialized pediatric expertise, including care for children with serious, rare and complex conditions. They trust us to provide the best possible outcomes for their children. Here’s why.

Connected Expertise and Care Centered On Your Child

Everything we do is inspired by kids and driven by what each patient needs. That’s why Cincinnati Children’s is a comprehensive pediatric health system designed to bring many top-ranked areas of expertise together to benefit our patients and families. You don’t need to coordinate this care yourself. We bring these experts to you. Cincinnati Children’s embeds team-based, specialty care from across the health system for our patients. For example:

• Our Aerodigestive and Esophageal Center brings experts together in the same room to evaluate children with intertwined breathing, swallowing and feeding problems and develop a personalized, coordinated plan.
• Our two-day cerebral palsy mobility evaluation brings specialists from five areas together for highly coordinated appointments. The experts review their findings together as a team, then meet with parents to share a personalized, actionable treatment plan and answer their questions.
• Our Cancer Program collaborates with each of our top-ranked pediatric specialty programs and together they beat the odds against the most difficult-to-treat pediatric cancers. When a tumor is detected in utero, neonatologists and pediatric oncologists work together alongside fetal surgeons to plan prenatal interventions, coordinate delivery in the Special Delivery Unit, and initiate immediate postnatal cancer management.

Research and Clinical Care That Work Together

At Cincinnati Children’s, we’re guided by science. Our research programs are purposely designed to be collaborative and move discoveries from the lab to ground-breaking care that changes and saves lives, making Cincinnati Children’s a leading source of pediatric discovery and innovation.

For families facing difficult-to-treat conditions, choosing a pediatric health system that is also a research powerhouse may open new possibilities when standard care is not enough.

• Our researchers identified a key driver of HLH (a rare, life-threatening immune disease) and led the global clinical trial that resulted in the first-ever FDA-approved treatment specifically for HLH.
• Our researchers discovered how to predict which children with ulcerative colitis may need more aggressive treatment, helping doctors make more informed, personalized treatment decisions sooner.
• Our researchers’ foundational discovery paved the way for the first FDA-approved treatment for children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), which can shrink tumors once considered inoperable.

Proven Expertise for the Most Complex Conditions

When a child has a serious or complex condition, experience matters. Cincinnati Children’s specialists treat some of the most difficult-to-diagnose pediatric conditions, helping us say yes when others say no.

Our depth of expertise helps us recognize what others may miss, identify additional options and determine what comes next. It is one reason Cincinnati Children’s ranks among the nation’s top hospitals year after year.

• Graylyn’s rare liver condition was causing life-threatening problems with his lungs when his family traveled from Utah to Cincinnati Children’s. Our experts drew on their deep experience to identify a rare complication and provide the liver transplant he needed as a young baby.
• When Makenzie needed treatment for an aggressive cancer complicated by a rare immune disorder, her doctors in Indiana recommended a second opinion at Cincinnati Children’s. Our experts recognized that standard treatment was too dangerous and developed a treatment approach specifically for Makenzie that saved her life.
• Dylan’s hometown hospitals in Georgia couldn’t treat his complex heart defect, but Cincinnati Children’s said yes. Our heart team created a specialized surgical plan and performed three complex surgeries that gave him a second chance.

We strive to be the best hospital every day by giving every patient our best—the best collaboration, treatment options, and pediatric specialists—to achieve their best possible outcomes. Because helping children everywhere live their best possible life is at the heart of everything we do.