Hospital financial
assistance & debt
collection policies
A national data set
2025 BLASR
Learn more about our most recent winner of the Bernard Lown Award for Social Responsibility, Dr. Reshma Ramachandran!
Making hospital
tax breaks work
for communities
An analysis of 20 states
2024 Shkreli Awards
A top ten list of the worst examples of healthcare profiteering and dysfunction each year
Back surgery overuse
200,000 unnecessary procedures at a cost of $2 billion to Medicare
Avoiding Overuse: Coronary Stents
How professional inertia harms patients and wastes billions of dollars
America’s Most Racially Inclusive Hospitals
Socially responsible hospitals serve everyone in their communities.
Pay Equity
How much should we pay nonprofit hospital CEOs? What are we rewarding them for — and what metrics could we base their salaries on instead?
About
The Lown Institute is a think tank generating bold ideas for a just and caring system for health. more
FEATURED
Leadership
Vikas Saini
President
Blog
How did the 2025 US News best hospitals perform on the Lown Index?
US News & World Report just released their list of “best hospitals” for 2025-26, which is based primarily on patient outcomes for complex specialty care and common procedures. The Lown Hospitals Index for Social Responsibility takes a different approach to hospital ranking, evaluating hospitals on metrics of equity and value as well as outcomes. Here's how the 2025 US News best hospitals perform on the Lown Index. More
These top critical access hospitals are at risk of closure
See which critical access hospitals made our list of most socially responsible hospitals…and which ones are at risk of shutting down services or closure. More
CFPB rule to remove medical debt from credit reports blocked in court
A federal judge recently struck down a rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) seeking to remove medical debt from credit reports. How will this affect medical debt in the future? More