Four Arkansas hospitals have been named to Forbes‘ inaugural Top Hospitals list for 2026. According to Forbes, its rating system evaluated “general acute care hospitals throughout the United States to offer consumers unbiased information on which hospitals can offer top-notch, high-value medical services, no matter where they are in the country — as well as a benchmark against which hospitals can compare their performance to that of their peers.”Making the list from Arkansas were Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville, Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers, Mercy Hospital Fort Smith and White River Medical Center in Batesville. Forbes used data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provider data catalog to assess hospital best practices, value and patient experience, according to the release. Patient outcomes, such as rates of survival, mortality, infection and readmission, carried the most weight while outcomes were adjusted for social drivers of health, including socioeconomics and access to medical services, to account for differences among hospitals’ locations and patient populations. The full list is available here.

Source: Forbes January 02, 2026 18:36 UTC