St. Joseph’s Hospital of Buckhannon has been named one of the top 100 critical access hospitals in the nation and is the only hospital in the state of West Virginia to receive this award. 

The award is given by the Chartis Center for Rural Health. Regarded as one of the industry’s most significant designations of performance excellence, the annual Top 100 Critical Access Hospitals award is based upon the results of the Hospital Strength INDEX from iVantage Health Analytics.

“We are very honored to receive this award,” said Skip Gjolberg, president of St. Joseph’s Hospital. “It is a testament to the staff of our hospital who strive to reach our vision of being the best small town hospital in West Virginia.”

Hospitals recognized as a Top 100 facility scored in the top 100 among all Critical Access Hospitals nationally. Now in its ninth year, the INDEX leverages 50 rural-relevant indicators across eight pillars of hospital strength (i.e. Inpatient Market Share, Outpatient Market Chare, Cost, Charge, Quality, Outcomes, Patient Perspective and Financial Stability) to determine an overall score for each hospital. Each of the INDEX’s 50 indicators is culled from publicly-available data sources. 

“In an era of increased complexity and uncertainty, Top 100 hospitals have established themselves as a bellwether for rural provider performance,” said Michael Topchik, national leader of The Chartis Center for Rural Health. “Top 100 status is a real indicator of how proactive these hospitals are when it comes to pushing for performance improvement in areas such as quality, outcomes, patient safety, market share and finance.”

To see the list of this year’s Top 100 Critical Access Hospitals, as well as the 2019 INDEX methodology, go to www.ivantageindex.com/top-performing-hospitals.