Stony Brook University Hospital has been named one of America's 100 Best Hospitals for stroke care by Healthgrades for the twelfth year in a row, and this year it was added to the national top 100 lists for pulmonary care and, for a second straight year, joint replacement. The 2027 ratings were announced on November 2.

Healthgrades evaluates roughly 4,500 hospitals across the country each year on more than 30 conditions and procedures. Its ratings are built only on risk-adjusted mortality and complication rates, which means a hospital earns a high mark by how its patients actually fared rather than by reputation or survey scores.

Three top 100 lists in one year

The stroke care distinction is the longest-running of the three. Stony Brook has been on the America's 100 Best Hospitals for Stroke Care list every year from 2016 through 2027. The joint replacement listing is new as of last year and carries over into 2027. Pulmonary care is new this year.

Nationally, the hospital placed in the top 5 percent for pulmonary care, cranial neurosurgery, stroke treatment and joint replacement, and in the top 10 percent for cardiology, coronary intervention, neurosciences, outpatient prostate care and emergency medicine. Within New York State, Healthgrades ranked it second for cranial neurosurgery, and third for both neurosciences and stroke care.

The specialty awards, by area

Below the national lists, Healthgrades also hands out specialty excellence awards and five-star ratings for individual procedures. Stony Brook's 2027 haul spans most of the hospital.

  • Neurosciences: the Neurosciences Excellence Award and Stroke Care Excellence Award, both held since 2016; the Cranial Neurosurgery Excellence Award, held since 2020; and five stars for stroke treatment, held since 2015.
  • Heart care: the Cardiology and Coronary Intervention Excellence Awards for 2026 and 2027, plus five stars for treating heart failure, a rating the hospital has carried every year since 2014, and for heart attack treatment since 2022.
  • Orthopedics: the Joint Replacement Excellence Award, and five stars for total knee replacement, total hip replacement and hip fracture treatment.
  • Lungs and critical care: the Pulmonary Care and Critical Care Excellence Awards, and five stars for pneumonia, sepsis and respiratory failure. The sepsis rating dates to 2015.
  • Also recognized: five stars for treating pancreatitis, an Outpatient Prostate Care Award and an Emergency Medicine Excellence Award.

Why the ratings matter to a patient

Healthgrades estimates that if every hospital in the country had performed at the level of its five-star hospitals from 2023 through 2025, about 227,000 lives could have been saved and more than 158,000 complications avoided among Medicare patients. Its medical advisor made the case in the announcement that choosing a hospital strong in the specific procedure you need can make a real difference in the result.

Hospital leaders credited the care teams. Stony Brook Medicine's executive vice president, Dr. William Wertheim, tied the recognition to the hospital's focus on clinical quality and to the way its teams work together, and hospital CEO Carol Gomes pointed to the physicians, nurses and staff behind the consistency the ratings measure.

About the hospital

Stony Brook University Hospital is part of the State University of New York and has 628 beds. It is the region's only tertiary care center and its Regional Trauma Center, and Suffolk County's only Level 4 Regional Perinatal Center. It houses the Stony Brook University Heart Institute, Cancer Center, Children's Hospital and Neurosciences Institute, along with the Christopher Pendergast ALS Center of Excellence, a kidney transplant center and the nation's first pediatric multiple sclerosis center.

Healthgrades' evaluation also takes in data from Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport, which are part of the same system.

Where to find it

Stony Brook University Hospital is at 101 Nicolls Road in Stony Brook. The full list of 2027 ratings for the hospital, condition by condition, is on its profile at healthgrades.com.

Sources