The National Rural Health Association (NRHA), recently announced the 20 highest ranked critical access hospitals (CAHs) in the country, as determined by iVantage Health Analytics. An awards ceremony will be held during NRHA’s Critical Access Hospital Conference in September in Kansas City, Mo.

The determining factors for the Top 20 CAHs were based on eight indices of strength including inpatient market share, outpatient market share, quality, outcomes, patient perspectives, costs, charges and financial stability. This elite group was selected from iVantage’s Top 100 CAH list, which was released earlier this year.

Forty “best practice” designations were also given to facilities that have achieved success in one of two key areas of performance, based on iVantage’s tabulation: 1) Quality index: A rating of hospital performance based on the percentile rank across the five categories of the company’s hospital compare process of care measures and 2) patient perspective index: A rating of hospital performance based on the percentile rank on two HCAHPS measures (“overall rating” and “highly recommend”).

“NRHA is committed to ensuring our members have the best information to manage their hospitals,” said Brock Slabach, NRHA membership services senior vice president. “And we’re pleased to recognize the accomplishments of these rural hospitals.”

The list of Top 20 winners and best practice recipients, in alphabetical order and by category, is included below.

TOP 20 CRITICAL ACCESS HOSPITALS IN THE NATION:

Aspirus Ironwood Hospital & Clinics, Inc.                              Ironwood, Mich.

Aspirus Iron River Hospital & Clinics, Inc.                             Iron River, Mich.

Audubon County Memorial Hospital                                      Audubon, Iowa

Avera Holy Family Hospital                                                     Estherville, Iowa

Carrington Health Center                                                       Carrington, N.D.

Central Montana Medical Center                                          Lewistown, Mont.

Cherokee Regional Medical Center                                     Cherokee, Iowa

Door County Medical Center                                                 Sturgeon Bay, Wis.

Floyd Valley Healthcare                                                         Le Mars, Iowa

Grande Ronde Hospital                                                        La Grande, Ore.

Kimble Hospital                                                                      Junction, Texas

Livingston Healthcare                                                           Livingston, Mont.

New Ulm Medical Center                                                      New Ulm, Minn.

Phillips County Health Systems                                           Phillipsburg, Kan.

Riverwood Healthcare Center                                              Aitkin, Minn.

Smith County Memorial Hospital                                         Smith Center, Kan.

St. Luke’s Medical Center                                                    Crosby, N.D.

Steele Memorial Medical Center                                         Salmon, Idaho

Wallowa Memorial Hospital                                                  Enterprise, Ore.

West River Regional Medical Center                               Hettinger, N.D.