Intermountain Primary Children’s ranked among nation’s best children’s hospitals

SALT LAKE CITY — U.S. News and World Report has ranked Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital among the best children’s hospitals in the country in 2024.

“We actually ranked in all 11 specialties this year, which puts us in the top 50 of every category,” said Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital President Dustin Lipson.

“That’s an amazing achievement for the hospital and a recognition of all the incredible work that happens here by so many people. So we’re extraordinarily excited this year.”

Lipson said they ranked in the top 25 for cardiology, heart surgery, nephrology, gastroenterology, and gastroenterology surgery.

For the third year, Primary Children’s Hospital was ranked number one for patient outcomes in neurology and neurosurgery.

Although the magazine doesn’t rank for behavioral and mental health, Lipson said they were also on its list of top behavioral health programs.

“That behavioral and mental health. It’s such a need in our community. We really do stand out as an extraordinary place in the nation in terms of all of the services,” he said.

“Also, how we distribute that care across a really large geography is very special. It is truly an exceptional program and something we’re really really proud of.”

The role of Primary Children’s Hospital’s specialists

Lipson said a key to their high-quality care is the teams of specialists they bring together around specific illnesses and ailments.

“You have a cancer team and you have a heart team. But even within those categories, [within] every single specialty area are sub-teams and sub-sub teams that focus on even one in a million diagnoses.”

He said those teams derive their quality care by asking questions like ‘what equipment do we need?’ ‘What kind of skills do we need?’ ‘Who do we need to recruit?’ ‘How do we work together?’ and ‘How do we measure that?’

“There really is only a handful of people across the country in each one of those roles that are so … uniquely qualified. We bring together groups of those people to help kids.”

Lastly, Lipson said they couldn’t do it without the support from the community.

“The last few years we have been very very focused on initiative to build the model health system for children and a part of that has been our focus on what we call primary promise, which is a major philanthropic campaign. This is community donors at every level coming together to support children’s health throughout Utah and the Intermountain West, and it’s really our donors who have made so much of this result possible.”

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