Tallahatchie General Hospital in Charleston, Mississippi, again ranks among the nation’s best small rural hospitals in patient satisfaction, according to the National Rural Health Association.
For a second straight year, during an awards ceremony at an annual conference of the association in Kansas City, Missouri, NRHA has recognized TGH as a “Top 20 Critical Access Hospital Best Practice in Patient Satisfaction” honoree.
TGH Administrator Jim Blackwood and staffers Lisa Smiley-Veazey, Justin Brunson and Cathy Williams attended the event in late September.
Blackwood called the award “a nice honor” and said it is “great to be recognized” for satisfying patients.
This is not the first time TGH has drawn accolades for quality customer service. In 2018, it achieved the maximum five-star rating on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems patient satisfaction survey, regulated and monitored by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“We’ve been very deliberate about patient satisfaction. It’s something we measure and we share with our staff,” said Blackwood. “Every month, we’re above the state and national averages on those scores.”
TGH and Greene County Hospital in Leakesville were the only critical access hospitals in Mississippi to receive a patient satisfaction award at the NRHA event.
The mission of NRHA is to provide leadership on rural health issues through advocacy, communications, education and research. NRHA’s members include critical access hospitals, rural health clinics and community health centers. Its headquarters are in Kansas City and Washington, D.C.
The critical access hospital program is a federal initiative designed to aid small rural hospitals in serving residents who otherwise would find themselves a long distance from emergency care. TGH earned that designation in February 2002.
As of July 21, there were 1,362 critical access hospitals in the United States, including 32 in Mississippi.
On the TGH website homepage, at www.mytgh.com, part of a statement by Blackwood notes, “At TGH, we pride ourselves on providing two very basic things — quality in healthcare and excellence in customer service. Quality outcomes and customer service are our primary concerns.”
