JACKSON, Miss.—Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson is the only hospital in Mississippi to be named one of “America’s best hospitals,” according to an annual ranking released Thursday by U.S. News & World Report.

The hospital earned a spot on the list of 203 medical centers for its rheumatology/arthritis services, joining the likes of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.

“This is the second time we’ve received this honor, and we’re very pleased to be a part of this prestigious list of health care providers,” said Mark Adams, president and CEO of Methodist. “As a specialty hospital, we’ve been able to dedicate all our talents, resources and energies to providing high quality health care for patients with neurological and orthopedic diseases and injuries. This ranking recognizes those efforts and is an incentive to keep doing our best.”

To produce the ranking, U.S. News reviewed 6,003 hospitals across the country in 17 specialties ranging from cancer to urology. Hospitals were rated on a variety of factors, including reputation, mortality rates, nursing care, available technology and whether they were a teaching hospital or affiliated with a medical school.

“These medical centers excel for good reasons,” writes editor Avery Comarow in the special hospital guide issue of U.S. News that hits newsstands July 21. “For one, their doctors perform large numbers of procedures and study after study shows that practice counts. The best hospitals, moreover, tend to adhere more closely to advanced treatment guidelines, to incorporate new findings into patient care, and to conduct research that gives desperately ill patients additional options.”

Since its inception in 1975, Methodist Rehab has treated patients with disabling rheumatoid arthritis and other neurological and orthopedic illnesses and injuries, including spinal cord injury, brain injury and stroke.

The 124-bed hospital is one of the few free-standing rehabilitation facilities in the country to offer surgery and was the fifth in the world to install a clean air surgical suite. It is also home to one of only a few motion analysis laboratories in the entire nation that tests patients who have suffered brain or spinal cord injuries or a stroke.

Physician Dr. David Collipp said teamwork has been instrumental in the success of all the hospital’s programs. “We have a top-notch nursing and therapy staff with a dedication to both patient comfort and clinical outcomes,” Collipp said. “Our approach to pain management is a good example of this commitment. We realized that patients often a need a variety of therapies to ease their suffering, so we developed a pain management program that provides these services in one setting.

“We’ve always strived to be the first in rehabilitative research, treatment and care,” said Adams. “And it’s our dedicated staff that has made that goal possible.”

A team of physician-scientists at the Center for Neuroscience and Neurological Recovery at Methodist Rehab work to translate basic neuroscience research into useful therapies that benefit patients suffering from neurological illnesses and injuries.

“By building on this hospital’s reputation and strong commitment to research, our physicians are able to quickly move research findings from the laboratory to the patient’s bedside, thus bridging the gap between biomedical discoveries and their clinical application,” said Adams.

Last year, CNNR researchers were the first in the world to discover West Nile virus attacks the spinal cord and can cause acute flaccid paralysis similar to polio.

The Jackson hospital is also one of only 16 hospitals in the country designated as a Traumatic Brain Injury Model System by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research and is only one of two in the state accepted into the prestigious Council of Teaching Hospitals.