Picking top children’s hospitals in behavioral health

For nearly 20 years, U.S. news & World Report has compiled its listing of the best children’s hospitals, and the analysis includes rankings of treatment for cancer, cardiology and orthopedics.

But U.S. news has added a newer category to its listing: behavioral health. U.S. news released its rankings of the best children’s hospitals for 2025-26, and this is the second year that the U.S. news listing of best children’s hospitals includes mental health treatment.

Ben Harder, chief of health analysis and managing editor at U.S. news, says the inclusion of the behavioral health category reflects the growing interest of pediatric hospital leaders.

“The genesis of it was during the pandemic, when children’s hospitals came to us and said, ‘We need to have a North Star around providing behavioral health to children,’” Harder tells Chief Healthcare Executive®.

“The challenge that we face is that there weren’t a whole lot of well defined, well agreed on quality measures for behavioral health, especially in the pediatric world. And so we’ve had to develop many of those in consultation with clinicians and researchers,” he says.

(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

Pediatric hospitals have seen more children and teens requiring treatment for mental health needs, including youths requiring emergency treatment.

Since U.S. news has only recently included behavioral health in its analysis of pediatric hospitals, Harder says researchers are still refining the process. In its rankings, U.S. news named the top 50 children’s hospitals, but didn’t offer a numerical ranking of the providers on that list. There’s no first, second or 50th place. (See the full list below.)

Harder says a more specific numerical ranking could be coming down the road.

“I think that that is definitely an option for us as we go forward, but we felt that it wasn’t the right time for us to assign ordinal ranks to hospitals,” Harder says.

“We are still working with clinicians and experts in the field to really define: How do you measure quality in adolescent pediatric behavioral health? So, yeah, I think it remains a work in progress,” he adds.

This year, U.S. news added another element to its analysis of behavioral health, which tracks patients who are spending extended periods in the emergency department. Pediatric hospitals and general hospitals have seen more patients “boarding” in emergency rooms for days or even weeks as they wait for a bed.

“Boarding is particularly a problem for young people with behavioral health needs,” Harder says.

“There’s really an epidemic, I think, nationally, of children being brought into the emergency room and not being able to get admitted to a psychiatric bed,” he adds.

Harder says the rise of kids and teens stuck in emergency departments prompted some hospital executives to push U.S. news to include behavioral health in its analysis of the top pediatric hospitals.

Such care is increasingly in demand, but as Harder says, “It’s not a profit center for most hospitals.”

“There’s so much demand for it,” he says. “They can barely meet that.”

U.S. news is also hoping to draw more attention to the many young people that need behavioral health treatment.

“It’s a societal problem. It’s not just a quality problem within our institutions,” Harder says

“We hope that that can shine a light on the acute need, but also the fact that it is possible to get great care, to make great care available for adolescents and children who have behavioral health needs,” he adds. “So we hope that we can be part of the solution to this societal problem.”

Top hospitals in behavioral health

U.S. news named the top 50 children’s hospitals in behavioral health, but didn’t rank them numerically (first, second, third). These 50 facilities are listed in alphabetical order.

Akron Children’s Hospital

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children

Boston Children’s Hospital

Children’s Hospital Colorado

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Children’s Medical Center Dallas

Children’s Mercy Kansas City Hospital

Children’s National Hospital

CHOC Children’s Hospital

Cincinnati Children’s

Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital

Cohen Children’s Medical Center

Cook Children’s Medical Center

Corewell Health Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital

Dell Children’s Medical Center

Duke Children’s Hospital and Health Center

Hackensack Meridian Health JM Sanzari and K Hovnanian Children’s Hospitals

Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital-University of Utah

Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital at Memorial

Johns Hopkins Children’s Center-Kennedy Krieger Institute

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford

Mayo Clinic Children’s Center

Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Nemours Children’s Hospital-Delaware

Nemours Children’s Hospital-Florida

New York-Presbyterian Children’s Hospital-Columbia and Cornell

Nicklaus Children’s Hospital

North Carolina Children’s Hospital at UNC

Norton Children’s Hospital

Phoenix Children’s Hospital

Rady Children’s Hospital

Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital

Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health

Seattle Children’s Hospital

St. Louis Children’s Hospital-Washington University

Texas Children’s Hospital

UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, San Francisco and Oakland

UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital

University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital

University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital

University of Rochester-Golisano Children’s Hospital

University of Virginia Children’s Hospital

UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

West Virginia University Children’s Hospital

Wolfson Children’s Hospital

Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital