Lafayette Regional Health Center in Lexington, Missouri was recently named one of the Top 20 Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) for QUALITY in the country.

The Top 20 Critical Access Hospitals, including Lafayette Regional Health Center, scored best among critical access hospitals as determined by The Chartis Center for Rural Health for Quality. The rankings were recently announced by the National Rural Health Association (NRHA). An awards ceremony will be held during NRHA's Critical Access Hospital Conference in September in Kansas City, Mo.

The Top 20 Critical Access Hospital "winners" are those hospitals who have achieved success in the overall performance based on a composite rating from eight indices of strength: inpatient market share, outpatient market share, quality, outcomes, patient perspectives, cost, charge and financial stability. This group was selected from The Chartis Center for Rural Health's 2019 Top 100 CAH list, which was released earlier this year.

Those hospitals that have been recognized as Top 20 Critical Access Hospital "best practice recipients" have achieved success one of two key areas of performance:

  • Quality index: A rating of hospital performance based on the percentile rank across the five categories of Hospital Compare Process of Care measures.
  • Patient perspective index: A rating of hospital performance based on the percentile rank on two Hospital Compare HCAHPS measures ("Overall Rating" and "Highly Recommend)".

"Lafayette Regional Health Center is proud of the efforts of its physicians and staff who have contributed to our hospital achieving this Quality designation for the third year in a row - 2017, 2018 and 2019," said Darrel Box, CEO. "Our results as a top Quality performer means our community can count on us to deliver the services they need now and in the future."