GLASGOW – T.J. Samson Community Hospital has been named one of the top 100 rural and community hospitals in the United States by the Chartis Center for Rural Health.

T.J. Samson is also the only hospital in Kentucky to be named to the list.

“This is the first time that we have gotten this,” said Stacey Biggs, executive vice president for marketing, planning and development for T.J. Regional Health. “Their ranking was taken strictly from the data and analytics that they pulled from various sources. This is the first time for us, so we were excited.”

The Chartis Center for Rural Health releases a list of the top 100 rural and community hospitals in the nation each year.

Biggs explained that the Chartis Center for Rural Health is a national health care advisory firm that does a lot of research, data mining and analytics, as well as consulting, strategy and planning for health care organizations.

“Of course they have a particular focus on rural health care organizations, so they really advocate for rural health,” she said.

Biggs said T.J. Samson was weighed on various quality measures in regard to patient care when being considered for the designation.

“All of the measures that are related to quality all come down to the level of patient care. But they are looking at several different things. They are looking at market share, both inpatient and outpatient … patient outcomes, which obviously everybody wants the best patient outcomes all the time. And then patient perspective.”

T.J. Samson patients are surveyed frequently so hospital officials can get a perspective on the level of care the patients received during their visit, she said.

Financial stability is also part of the criteria for the ranking.

“We are certainly a financially sound organization so that played into that as well,” Biggs said.

The list of the top 100 rural and community hospitals in the nation was published on the Beckers Hospital Review website.

“Beckers is a well-respected health care communication media that is very specific to health care and hospitals. To be mentioned in Beckers is a pretty big thing, too, so we were glad that they reported on it,” she said.

To celebrate, news of the designation was published in the hospital employees’ newsletter and shared via social media. Hospital employees were also asked to share it on personal social media accounts.

“… For us it’s really a point of pride. It’s very humbling to be included in that list, certainly. I don’t know if you can be humble and very proud at the same time, but that’s kind of the way we feel about it to be honest,” Biggs said. “This is something we want folks to know about it because it is something to be proud of.”