FCH Top 100 in nation

On March 4, the Chartis Center for Rural Health released its annual list of the Top 100 Critical Access Hospitals in the United States. Fillmore County Hospital (FCH) made the list. This is the same group that recognized FCH as a Top 20 hospital for its quality of care in 2019. The criteria for being an overall Top 100 hospital are based on the Hospital Strength Index and spans multiple areas: market share, quality of care, patient outcomes, patient satisfaction, cost, charge, and financial efficiency.

Critical access hospitals, by definition, are small hospitals (25 beds and under) in rural areas that are in place to serve residents that would otherwise need to travel a long distance for emergency and hospital care. There are roughly 1,350 critical access hospitals in the United States and they are heavily distributed in the Midwest. There are 64 located in Nebraska. Nebraska was well represented on the Top 100 list with 15. In comparison, Iowa had 10, Kansas had 17, South Dakota had six, Colorado had two and Missouri had zero.