Premier Announces the 2026 100 Top Hospitals® Program Winners Recognized by Modern Healthcare

Introducing new Academic Medical Center comparison group to enhance benchmarking across complex care environments

Apr. 14, 2026 at 1:05pm

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A ghostly, translucent X-ray photograph revealing the intricate internal structures of a modern hospital building, glowing with an ethereal energy and conceptually representing the complex, interconnected systems that enable high-performing healthcare organizations.An X-ray view into the inner workings of a top-performing hospital, revealing the complex systems and structures that enable exceptional care delivery.Charlotte Today

Premier, Inc., a leading technology-driven healthcare improvement company, today announced the nation's 100 Top Hospitals®, with the full list of recognized hospitals published by Modern Healthcare. The program evaluates hospitals using publicly available data and recognizes those delivering strong performance across clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, patient experience, and financial health. New for 2026 is the introduction of a dedicated Academic Medical Center (AMC) peer comparison group to better reflect the complexity of AMC patient populations and the unique missions of academic institutions.

Why it matters

The 100 Top Hospitals® program has produced annual, objective, quantitative analyses designed to identify the nation's highest-performing hospitals and deliver insights that help healthcare organizations achieve consistent, balanced and sustainable high performance. The new AMC comparison group will provide more meaningful benchmarks for academic institutions as they strive to balance research, education and highly specialized care while delivering strong clinical and operational outcomes.

The details

To determine this year's winners, Premier researchers evaluated 2,540 short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals using publicly available data. The AMC comparison group includes hospitals of any size that serve as the primary teaching hospital for a Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredited medical school. If all hospitals operated at the level of this year's top performers, the impact for Medicare inpatients could include more than 279,000 additional lives saved, more than 477,000 additional patients' complication-free, more than $14.3 billion in inpatient cost savings, and more than 21,700 fewer patients readmitted within 30 days.

  • The 100 Top Hospitals® program has produced annual analyses for more than 30 years.
  • The 2026 study evaluated hospital performance data from 2019 through 2024.

The players

Premier, Inc.

A leading technology-driven healthcare improvement company that unites providers, suppliers and payers to make healthcare better with national scale, smarter with actionable intelligence and faster with novel technologies.

David Zito

President of Performance Services at Premier.

Modern Healthcare

The publication that will publish the full list of 100 Top Hospitals® recognized by Premier.

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What they’re saying

“Premier's 100 Top Hospitals program recognizes healthcare organizations that consistently deliver high-quality care while improving operational efficiency, financial performance and the patient experience.”

— David Zito, President of Performance Services at Premier

“The Everest Award recognizes hospitals that not only achieve outstanding performance today but also demonstrate meaningful improvement over time. These organizations exemplify what's possible when leadership, clinical excellence and operational strategy align to drive sustained transformation.”

— David Zito, President of Performance Services at Premier

What’s next

Premier will continue to refine and enhance the 100 Top Hospitals® program, including the new Academic Medical Center comparison group, to provide the most meaningful and actionable insights for healthcare organizations nationwide.

The takeaway

The 100 Top Hospitals® program demonstrates that high-performing hospitals can deliver exceptional clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, financial sustainability and patient experience, even in the face of growing complexity in healthcare. The new AMC comparison group will help academic medical centers benchmark their progress and identify opportunities to further elevate care delivery and community impact.