Michigan’s hospital was traditionally ranked among the top 10 nationally, but has dropped out of the top 10 for the last decade or so. However, in this year’s edition, the hospital has leapt back into the top 10 all the way up to #6.
Among university hospitals, Michigan Hospital was ranked #3 (behind Harvard’s Mass General and UCSF Hospital).
USNWR must have tweaked their methodology for rating hospitals. Now if they would only fix the school rankings…
How did it jump from #18 last year to #6 this year??
http://health.usnews.com/health-care/best-hospitals/articles/best-hospitals-honor-roll-and-overview
I’m extremely skeptical that it can jump 12 places in 1 year. More likely, not much really changed and usnews changed their methodology.
A lot of the rankings have to do with filling out forms correctly, and including certain information that the rating bodies desire. My wife’s department had a huge jump for exactly this reason, and it was still not completed optimally.
Like the colleges ranking, the US News hospitals ranking of the University of Michigan was very suspicious. As rjk suggests, hopefully, the colleges ranking methodology will also be corrected to address those inconsistencies. 
All kidding aside, there are very few medical experts who would deny that Michigan Medical Center is a top 10 hospital nationally, just as there are very few in academe who would deny that the University of Michigan is a top 10 university nationally (not including LACs).