The U.S. News & World Report ranked EvergreenHealth in Kirkland as among the top two hospitals in Washington state and the Seattle metro area for 2013-14.

The U.S. News “Best Hospitals” rankings are now in their 24th year of recognizing hospitals that excel in treating patients with challenging conditions and medical issues.

“It’s a great honor to be recognized as one of the best options for healthcare not only in the Puget Sound region but in the entire state,” said Bob Malte, CEO of EvergreenHealth. “This distinction from U.S. News & World Report is a first for our team and we are honored to share this recognition across our entire organization.”

According to this year’s report, EvergreenHealth is the highest ranking non-teaching hospital in Washington. The rankings also indicate that EvergreenHealth is the No. 2 hospital in both the region and the state for providing the best care for the most serious or complicated medical conditions and procedures.

U.S. News publishes its annual “Best Hospitals” rankings to help guide patients who need a high level of care because they face particularly difficult surgery, a challenging condition or added risk because of other health problems or age.

In addition, U.S. News recognized EvergreenHealth for high performance in 10 specialty areas, which is the highest number of specialty recognitions earned by a hospital in Washington state.

Those high-performing specialties include cancer, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology.

Among other top-performing hospitals is Virginia Mason Medical Center, a strategic partner of EvergreenHealth. Virginia Mason is ranked among the best hospitals in Seattle and Washington state for the fourth consecutive year, and earned recognition for several of its high-performing specialties.

U.S. News evaluates hospitals in 16 adult specialties. In most specialties, it ranks the nation’s top 50 hospitals and recognizes other high-performing hospitals that provide care at nearly the level of their nationally ranked peers. Objective measures such as patient survival and safety data, the adequacy of nurse staffing levels and other data largely determined the rankings in most specialties.

“A hospital that emerges from our analysis as one of the best has much to be proud of,” said Avery Comarow, U.S. News Health Rankings editor. “Only about 15 percent of hospitals are recognized for their high performance as among their region’s best.”

The specialty rankings and data were produced for U.S. News by RTI International, a leading research organization based in Triangle Park, N.C. U.S. News produced the state and metro rankings using the same data.

The rankings have been published at health.usnews.com/best-hospitals and will appear in print in the U.S. News Best Hospitals 2014 guidebook, available in bookstores and on newsstands Aug. 27.