Private health systems are often the first to bring patients the latest medical innovations on the market, but public health systems are proving that they’re not far behind in tech adoption.
Earlier this week, in partnership with data firm Statista, Newsweek published its ranking of World’s Best Smart Hospitals 2026. The list recognized 350 hospitals across 30 countries for their standout work in implementing new technologies.
The U.S. this year held onto the top spot, with 103 hospitals on the list. Germany once again ranked second with 24 hospitals, and the U.K. returned to third with 22 hospitals. More than 2,300 hospitals from around the globe were considered, including 484 in the U.S., 128 in the U.K. and 238 in Germany.
The top three countries on the list suggest that hospital systems of all sorts have the capacity to implement new technologies that improve patient outcomes. The U.S. famously operates under a private and decentralized hospital system, while the U.K. provides a foil to that model with its public and centralized system. In contrast, Germany uses a decentralized system that is strongly regulated and funded by mandatory statutory health insurance.
Although systems funded by national governments can get a bad rap for being slowed by layers of red tape, the high number of German and British hospitals on this year’s ranking suggests that today’s new technologies might be helping alleviate bureaucracy.
Dr. Regina Barzilay, distinguished professor of AI and Health at MIT, told Newsweek that centralized systems benefit significantly from the adaptability of AI. Because most AI models can be fine-tuned based on local populations, it’s easy for hospitals in a coordinated network to tweak new technologies as they see fit for their patients.
“Countries with a centralized healthcare system, or centralized healthcare records, can do a much better job because they have so much data and so much ability to monitor what AI tools are doing,” Barzilay said, adding that, “Any place where there’s even partial coordination can do a much better job [at adoption].”
Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin was once again the highest-ranked smart hospital in Germany this year, holding onto its spot as No. 8 in the world.
Founded in 1710, the hospital is run by both the Humboldt University of Berlin and Free University of Berlin and is among the best hospitals in the world. As part of Germany’s decentralized, multi-payer system, Charité is owned by the state of Berlin but funded through multiple insurers, including the nation’s statutory insurance, also known as “sickness funds,” and private insurers.
As part of the federal government’s health care authority, Germany began a national hospital reform earlier this year, kicking off a phased rollout that will continue through to 2029. Heyo K. Kroemer, the CEO of Charité, told Newsweek that the reform, which aims to consolidate the hospital landscape in Germany, has been critical to Charité’s success.
Kroemer said that without federal programs like Germany’s Hospital Future Act or the German Medical Informatics Initiative, “Many projects would still be pilots.” He pointed to the national Network of University Medicine, which coordinates data exchange across all German university hospitals, as another example of an efficient government program.
“Overall, we spent a high percentage of our GDP for our health care system compared to international standards—this should of course also be one reason for good quality and infrastructure,” Kroemer said. “We are facing significant demographic changes in Germany and the tech advances in AI will play an important role to address these challenges.”
The hospital executive acknowledged that while government policy has been a major driver to innovation, it “also creates friction.” Kroemer noted that regulation and procurement rules continue to slow down the adoption of promising AI capabilities and emphasized that it was important for Germany’s health care system to address the tech divide.
“Currently there are big differences between the degree of digitalization amongst different hospitals also depending on ownership,” he said. “These differences within the system have to be compensated and corrected to make it more efficient for our patients and employees. “
“We need to make secondary use of health data easier and safer, modernize administration to focus on outcomes rather than paperwork, and compete globally for digital talent,” he added. “Ultimately, the goal of digitalization is not technology itself, it is better patient outcomes. At the core of the Charité strategy, lies one future focus on prevention: We are convinced—keeping people healthy in the first place is the most powerful form of innovation in health care.”
University College Hospital
The U.K.’s National Health Services has been scrutinized by critics for bureaucratic inefficiency, long wait times, lack of funding and staffing shortages. Yet, 20 of their hospitals made Newsweek‘s ranking of World’s Best Smart Hospitals.
Only two of the U.K. hospitals recognized on the list are privately funded: The London Independent Hospital, which ranked 282 out of the top 350, and Nuffield Health – Bristol Hospital, which ranked 303 out of the top 350.
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), one of the largest NHS hospital groups in the U.K., put two hospitals up on the list: University College Hospital, which ranked among the top 100 at number 91, and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, which came in at number 284.
“It’s a very strange organization to walk around,” UCLH Chief Executive David Probert SAID. “It’s quite amazing, really. There is no paper anywhere. … The wards look and feel different. The days of notes and trolleys have been replaced by computers on wheels. It just feels like a different environment.”
UCLH completed the transformation in 2019 with the implementation of an electronic health record system. The hospital was the second in the U.K. to do so, and its early adoption served as a blueprint for other trusts in the U.K.
“Collaboration plays a major role in accelerating innovation,” Probert told Newsweek. “UCLH is connected locally, regionally and nationally.”
With the shared care record, clinicians can now review any test or exam that patients have in another system, whether it’s from primary care or a hospital, and in London or beyond.
“We’re now getting a much more holistic picture of our patients, whereas before you’d be requesting results and waiting,” Probert said. “We can now work with patients far more rapidly, safely and quickly.”
UCLH’s extensive database also means that the hospital can research more actively with both its university and commercial partners.
“It’s been a revolution for us,” he said. “It was a big investment, but it was an investment well spent.”
Probert said while there’s a centralized vision in place in the U.K., widespread adoption requires individual hospitals to commit to significant, sustained investment, to address workforce skill gaps and to ensure proper implementation support.
“Our training and adoption team is nationally recognized, ranking among the top 10 teams for [electronic health records] training in the U.K.,” he said. “We offer virtual training, e-learning, and specific programs. Training is not a one-off event at UCLH and this empowers staff to make the most of the technology.”
Knowing that another pandemic will happen at some stage in the future, Probert emphasized that digitizing hospitals is more important than ever. All his colleagues, from those in the U.S. to Singapore and China, have been preparing “to make sure that we have something that’s fit for the future.”
Probert said that having the ability to move information around electronically is “critically important for pandemic planning” and that having those pathways helped UCLH “enormously” during COVID.
“I would encourage anyone, as we move forward, to really climb into this,” he said.
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