I am happy to announce that Carroll County Memorial Hospital (CCMH) has for the fourth consecutive year been named a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital in the United States! To remind everyone, a Critical Access Hospital has 25 or less inpatient beds and provides services in a rural area. There are approximately 1,300 Critical Access Hospitals in the country and by virtue of simple math, that places CCMH in the top 8% of all these similar hospitals. Chartis Center for Rural Health is the consulting group that analyzes the data that goes into defining the metrics that distinguishes high performing hospitals from their peers. The National Rural Health Association partners with Chartis to promote this high standard of care.

The Chartis Rural Hospital Performance INDEX utilizes eight categories of metrics to compare hospitals. Inpatient Market Share; Outpatient Market Share; Quality; Outcomes; Patient Perspective; Cost; Charge and Finance are all pillars of performance that result from 36 individual indicators of a hospital’s operation.

There are 35 Critical Access Hospitals in Missouri, and CCMH is the only organization to have made the Top 100 for the last four consecutive years. To add to this designation, Chartis also goes further and in a few months will publicize the Top 20 Critical Access Hospital list for 2026, to which CCMH has been named in two of the last three years. No other Missouri Critical Access Hospital has made the Top 20 in recent memory of the 16 years that Chartis has been sharing this information. The simple math for the Top 20 equates to being in the top 1.5% or so in the country.

I hope this article has provided a bit more of an insight about the high caliber of healthcare that is provided at CCMH to the point of being consistently a Top 100 and Top 20 hospital in the nation. Our patients and community members help drive us to higher levels of quality and service, which in turn allows us to be nationally recognized. Of course, our staff are the ones who deserve all the accolades as they are the people that meet and routinely exceed our patients’ expectations. We will continue to work hard to address needs and provide the services that make sense for our service area. I wish you good health!