Mercy St. Francis Hospital celebrates National Rural Health Day as one of the best in the country at providing rural care. The Chartis Center for Rural Health named Mercy St. Francis Hospital to its 2024 Performance Leadership Award list, recognizing it as among the top 25% of rural hospitals across America with high scores in quality and patient perspective.
“I want to congratulate our entire team on earning this award,” said Valerie Davis, administrator of Mercy St. Francis Hospital. “Every single team member at Mercy St. Francis contributed to this incredible award. We know our patients rely on us as a critical access hospital, and we are dedicated to providing them the care they need right here in their own community. Sustaining rural health care is certainly not easy, and it’s changing constantly, but I am so thankful we have a team at Mercy St. Francis that is committed to ensuring we can provide high quality care for years to come. We are blessed to be a part of a large heath system that continues to support us and continues to invest in rural health care across many communities.”
The award is based on the results of the Chartis Rural Hospital Performance INDEX, a comprehensive and objective framework for assessing rural hospital performance. The benchmarks are used by rural health organizations to measure performance across multiple areas affecting operations and finance.
“The Performance Leadership awards capture the commitment, diligence and innovation with which America’s rural hospitals approach the delivery of care within their communities,” said Troy Brown, a Chartis network consultant. “It’s a tremendous honor to be able to recognize the efforts of this year’s award winners and celebrate their achievement as part of National Rural Health Day.”
National Rural Health Day is organized by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health, a membership association of state offices of health.
Every November is an opportunity to focus on the work at places like Mercy Hospital Lebanon to provide comprehensive health care services outside of urban areas. Rural hospitals are often the only source of emergency or inpatient care for local residents.
Working to eliminate access limitations, provider shortages and other rural health care challenges helps ensure rural Americans can pursue their dreams, build businesses and contribute to the nation’s economic well-being.
Mercy has also long been a leader in virtual care, which helps fill gaps for rural health, reducing the need for patients to physically seek out care or reorient their lives to gain access to specialists. Mercy’s focus on virtual care began more than 10 years ago when it launched hospital-based telemedicine programs, giving Mercy a crucial head start as a national leader in virtual services. Today’s recognition goes to show that Mercy continues to focus on providing rural health care for years to come.
