BCHC Receives Double National Honor
By: Aprill Murphy
ALBION, Nebraska (August 3, 2022) –For the second time in three years, Boone County Health Center, Albion, has received an elite five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). BCHC was one of only seven Nebraska hospitals to receive this honor.
In addition, BCHC was notified it was named one of the top 20 critical access hospitals (CAH) nationally by the Chartis Center for Rural Health.
BCHC is one of only seven hospitals in Nebraska, including all sizes of hospitals, to receive the five-star rating. BCHC is the smallest of the Nebraska five-star hospitals, and it received this rating in both 2019 and 2020, in addition to this year.
Other Nebraska hospitals to receive the five-star ranking this year were Bellevue Medical Center, Bryan Medical Center (Lincoln), CHI Health Good Samaritan (Kearney), CHI Health Lakeside (Omaha), CHI Health Midlands (Papillion) and Nebraska Methodist Hospital (Omaha).
The overall hospital Quality Star Rating summarizes about 50 measures of healthcare quality for a given hospital, but some of those measures have greater emphasis. Four heavily weighted categories are patient experience, safety, readmissions and mortality. These categories account for more than 80 percent of a hospital’s overall star rating.
“When patients are our highest priority and we work together as a team it shows, and these recent awards prove that,” said Jeanne Temme, vice president of Corporate Compliance and Risk Management.
Nationwide, approximately 13.8 percent of rated U.S. hospitals have five stars.
Top 20 Critical Access Hospital
BCHC was named one of the top 20 critical access hospitals for its overall performance in 2022, and is the only CAH in Nebraska to receive this honor. BCHC was named a top 100 critical access hospital in both 2020 and 2021.
The top 20 CAHs have achieved success in overall performance based on a composite rating from eight indices of strength: inpatient market share, outpatient market share, quality, outcomes, patient perspective, cost, charge, and finance. This group was selected from the Chartis Center for Rural Health’s 2022 top 100 CAH list, which was released earlier this year.
The top 20 CAH best practice recipients have achieved success in one of two key areas of performance:
- Quality index: A rating of hospital performance based on the percentile rank across rural-relevant process of care measures;
- Patient Perspective Index: A rating of hospital performance based on the percentile rank across all domains of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHCPS) surveys.
“Boone County Health Center is honored to be recognized for this award as it is an achievement that very few receive,” said Tanya Sharp, CEO of Boone County Health Center. “We have a team of highly skilled physicians and staff committed to excellence in high-quality healthcare that made this possible.”