BROOKINGS — Brookings Health System was again named a Top 20 Rural Community Hospital in the United States by the National Rural Health Association. National Rural Health Association. The health system scored in the top one percent among peer rural and community hospitals across the nation on the winter 2024 Chartis Rural Hospital Performance INDEX, the tool used to recognize the Top 20. 

“Our team’s hard work and dedication to positive patient outcomes and excellent service continues to prove year-after-year that we have what it takes to be among the best rural and community hospitals in the nation,” said president and CEO Jason Merkley. “Our focus is to continue to deliver the high-quality, compassionate, personalized health care our community has come to know and trust.”

This is the seventh time since the award was established in 2016 that the NRHA has named Brookings Health to the elite Top 20 list. The health system will be recognized at an awards ceremony during NRHA’s Rural Hospital Innovation Summit on May 9 in New Orleans, La. 

The NRHA honors the 20 highest-ranked prospective payment system hospitals in the country based on an evaluation by the Chartis Rural Hospital Performance Index. The index is based on publicly available data sets and is the industry’s most comprehensive and objective assessment of rural provider performance. It benchmarks rural and community hospitals on eight pillars of performance: inpatient market share, outpatient market share, quality, outcomes, patient perspective, cost, charge and financial efficiency. More information about the Top 20 can be found on ruralhealth.us. 

Brookings Health was also recently named to Neweek’s World’s Best Hospitals as well as a Top 100 Rural and Community Hospital. In addition, the Brookings Hospital currently holds an overall five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. To learn more about Brookings Health System’s high-quality care, visit brookingshealth.org/Quality.