NYU Langone Hospitals No. 1 in US for pulmonology, lung surgery

Key takeaways:

• The top spot for best hospital for pulmonology and lung surgery was held by NYU Langone Hospitals.
• All five of the top pulmonology and lung surgery hospitals were also on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll.

U.S. News & World Report has named NYU Langone Hospitals as No. 1 in Best Hospitals for pulmonology and lung surgery.

In last year’s report, NYU Langone Hospitals and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, tied for No. 1.

The top-ranked U.S. hospitals for pulmonology and lung surgery in the 2025-2026 Best Hospitals report are:

1. NYU Langone Hospitals;
2. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota;
3. UCSF Health-UCSF Medical Center;
4. UCLA Medical Center; and
5. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Each of these hospitals also made the 2025-2026 Best Hospitals Honor Roll, which included 20 hospitals that ranked highly across several specialties and evaluated procedures and conditions.

According to the 2025-2026 Best Hospitals by Specialty webpage, this edition of rankings compared nearly 5,000 hospitals that included 15 specialties and 22 procedures and conditions. The pulmonology and lung surgery specialty assessment included 1,668 hospitals.

This year, U.S. News & World Report also determined “high performing” hospitals for COPD, lung cancer surgery and pneumonia, which they described as hospitals that “typically have better patient outcomes compared to other hospitals.”

According to the best hospitals for COPD, lung cancer surgery and pneumonia webpages, this rating was based on patient survival rates, home recovery, number of patients treated and “other important measures.”

In each of these conditions/procedures, NYU Langone Hospitals, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center received “high performing” ratings.

Notably, these four hospitals also received a “high performing” rating in all 22 procedures and conditions, which was only achieved by a total of 19 hospitals, according to a press release.

Healio spoke with Daniel H. Sterman, MD, division director of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at NYU Langone Health and the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, to learn more about the care NYU Langone hospitals provide for their patients with pulmonary conditions and patients in need of lung surgery.

Healio: What elements make NYU Langone Hospitals stand out from other hospitals?

Sterman: The progress we have made as pulmonology and lung surgery teams has been remarkable. We take great pride in the multidisciplinary care provided by our physicians, our nurses, our respiratory therapists, the nurse practitioners, the physical therapists and the clinical research staff.

We also provide a patient-centered experience in all aspects. In our ICUs, we dedicate ourselves to the patients and their families. In our ambulatory care clinics, we believe that we offer the best patient care of any ambulatory pulmonary practice in the country. We are accessible, dedicated and committed to our patients’ well-being and aim to provide a holistic approach to each patient’s personalized care. Notably, we do all this while being at the cutting edge of new developments in therapy for lung diseases and fostering novel innovations ourselves in our NYU Lung translational lung biology laboratory.

The research component for our division is unique because it is all centered around the patient. In large part, the active scientific investigations in our pulmonology and lung surgery laboratories science are human translational in focus. This means that we are trying to learn from patients how best to diagnose lung disease, to analyze the etiology and course of these diseases, and to be able to design new therapies for the future. We want to make these treatments individualized for the patient, so we can improve the quality and the quantity of people’s lives and decrease the impediments to active lifestyles.

Our team-based medicine approach and focus on the patient and improving the quality of life every day are what make us stand out from other programs.

Healio: What are your thoughts on NYU Langone Hospitals’ achievement of “high performing” ratings for COPD, lung cancer surgery and pneumonia?

Sterman: Our No. 1 ranking is for both pulmonology and lung surgery designations. It sounds like those are different clinical disciplines, but at NYU Langone, our pulmonologists and intensivists work in close collaboration with our thoracic surgery colleagues in every area including lung cancer, bronchiectasis, mechanical circulatory support and lung transplantation.

We share with our thoracic surgery colleagues a remarkably collegial and collaborative approach with no ego. It is a privilege for us as pulmonologists to work with the best thoracic surgeons in the world, who are not only technically superb, but also compassionate physicians and surgical innovators who train colleagues from around the world in the latest surgical procedures.

In terms of COPD and pneumonia, our excellence stems from the tremendous quality of inpatient care on all of our services. This quality extends from our ICU teams at all of our hospitals, to our pulmonary consultation services and the collaborative relationship with our hospitalists who primarily manage many of our patients admitted with pneumonia and with COPD exacerbations. We are focused on optimal transitions of care, so that our patients who are discharged with COPD and pneumonia have rapid access to our ambulatory practice to minimize complications and hospital readmissions.

Another example of our unique care for patients with COPD is our innovative chronic respiratory failure program, which focuses on patients with the most severe forms of COPD and offers the capacity to take care of these patients at home, essentially creating an outpatient critical care service (“ICU at home”) through the use of modern noninvasive ventilation and close monitoring on an ambulatory basis.

From a COPD perspective, we also have a lung transplant program jointly led by pulmonology and lung surgery, which has been ranked No. 1 in the country in terms of outcomes, as well as shortest wait times.

We take great pride in taking care of patients with prevalent pulmonary diseases, such as pneumonia and COPD, and working together with our colleagues in internal medicine and hospital medicine to provide the best possible care for these important patient populations.

Healio: Could you explain the connection between pulmonology and lung cancer surgery at NYU Langone?

Sterman: When we talk about pulmonology and lung surgery, lung cancer surgery is truly a team effort, and this is not hyperbole. It is not just a matter of the surgeons going in and removing the lung cancer. It also involves proper staging and diagnosis by interventional pulmonologists; state-of-the-art immunotherapy and targeted therapy by our superb thoracic medical oncologists; cutting edge radiation therapy, including single-session stereotactic radiation therapy and proton beam therapy by our radiation oncologists. None of this would be possible without the guidance and collaborative efforts of our world-class thoracic pathologists and radiologists.

The connection we have between pulmonology and thoracic surgeons is the same with all the other lung cancer specialists. Our lung cancer center, which is run through the Perlmutter Cancer Center, is one of the premier disease-based programs in our cancer center. This is, in part, because we work so well together, pursue innovation collaboratively and strive to provide optimal treatment options for our patients.

Healio: How should physicians interpret your place on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll?

Sterman: We are ranked No. 1 in pulmonology and lung surgery, but the recognition is not limited to our programs. NYU Langone is No. 1 or in the top 10 in multiple other specialties. This really demonstrates the culture of exceptionalism that NYU Langone has, and it is exciting to be an integral part of this excellence. Working at NYU Langone, we are given all the tools needed to provide the best possible care for our patients and the trust to be able to pursue what is needed to excel.

Healio: What is next for NYU Langone Hospitals?

Sterman: Despite the recognition of our excellence, I would say we have no desire to rest on our laurels. There is so much still to be accomplished, and being recognized as No. 1 only means that we have to re-challenge ourselves to continue to do better because we still have high hurdles to overcome in lung cancer, COPD, bronchiectasis and interstitial lung disease. We need to desire better treatments, discover more minimally invasive diagnostic techniques and ultimately prevent lung disease before it develops.

We are thrilled to be No. 1, but we acknowledge that we still have a major challenge ahead of us with all of the developments in medicine including the roles of gene editing, AI and robotic technology development. In our NYU Langone pulmonology and thoracic surgery teams, we are excited by that challenge and ready to lead for the future.

References:

• 19 hospitals with top ratings. https://health.usnews.com/health-care/best-hospitals/articles/us-news-rated-hospitals-high-performing-in-all-procedures-conditions. Published July 29, 2025. Accessed July 29, 2025.
• America’s best hospitals: 2025-2026 honor roll and overview. https://health.usnews.com/health-care/best-hospitals/articles/best-hospitals-honor-roll-and-overview. Published July 29, 2025. Accessed, July 29, 2025.
• Best hospitals for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/hospital-ratings/copd. Published July 29, 2025. Accessed July 29, 2025.
• Best hospitals for lung cancer surgery. https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/hospital-ratings/lung-cancer-surgery. Published July 29, 2025. Accessed July 29, 2025.
• Best hospitals for pneumonia. https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/hospital-ratings/pneumonia. Published July 29, 2025. Accessed July 29, 2025
• Best hospitals for pulmonology & lung surgery. https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings/pulmonology. Published July 29, 2025. Accessed July 29, 2025.
• Best hospitals by specialty. https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings. Published July 29, 2025. Accessed July 29, 2025.

For more information:

Daniel H. Sterman, MD, can be reached at pulmonology@healio.com.