Just a few months ago, Copley Hospital was one of three Vermont Hospitals to receive Healthgrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award and was the only Vermont Critical Access Hospital to receive the 5-Star Rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for quality. Last week, Copley Hospital was recognized as a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital. On February 17, Becker’s Healthcare announced the best-performing Critical Access Hospitals for 2023 recognized by The Chartis Group, a healthcare consulting firm based in Chicago, Illinois. Copley Hospital is the only Vermont hospital to be named. Top hospitals are rated using publicly available data sets scored across eight performance pillars. Rural hospitals are analyzed annually through the lens of the Chartis Rural Hospital Performance Index, the industry’s most comprehensive and objective assessment of rural hospital performance in the United States, meaning Copley Hospital does well in a variety of areas as compared to its peers. The state-by- state listing can be found on Becker’s Healthcare website beckershospitalreview.com.
“We are pleased to learn of the ranking. Copley has an exceptional team of clinicians and employees that go to great lengths to provide the highest quality compassionate care – care our patients deserve and expect every day,” says Joseph Woodin, CEO of Copley Hospital.
According to The Chartis Group, ‘Amidst uncertainty, transition and strain, these top performers are excelling in managing risk, achieving higher quality, securing better outcomes, increasing patient satisfaction, and operating at a lower cost than their peers. These groups serve as a benchmark for other rural facilities as they strive to achieve similar results and provide a blueprint for successfully navigating the uncertainty of the new healthcare.’
“This designation speaks volumes to who we are and the role we play as a local healthcare provider in the well-being of the communities we serve,” added Woodin.
A Critical Access Hospital is a hospital certified to receive cost-based reimbursement from Medicare. This program is intended to reduce hospital closures in rural areas, to promote a process for improving rural health care, and to focus on community needs. CAHs must have a maximum of 25 acute care inpatient beds and provide 24-hour emergency services, with medical staff on-site. CAHs must be located in a rural area and be more than 35 miles from another hospital, or 15 miles from another hospital in mountainous terrain or areas with only secondary roads. Copley Hospital has been operating as a Critical Access Hospital since 2005.