Watertown Regional Medical Center Makes Top 100 Rural & Community Hospital List for Second Consecutive Year

Watertown, WI (February 26, 2024) – Watertown Regional Medical Center recently announced it has been recognized as a 2024 Top 100 Rural & Community Hospital. Compiled by The Chartis Center for Rural Health, this annual recognition program honors outstanding performance among the nation’s rural hospitals based on the results of the Chartis Rural Hospital Performance INDEX™.

This is the second consecutive year Watertown Regional Medical Center has been named to this list and the third time in a five-year span. It adds to the hospital’s recent successes, which include being named a Top Maternity Care Hospital for 2024 by U.S. News and World Report.

“Being named a ‘Top 100 Hospital’ for the second consecutive year is a testament to the quality and compassionate care our team members provide the people of Watertown and the surrounding communities every day,” said Richard Keddington, CEO of Watertown Regional Medical Center. “It’s easy for us to say our mission is to provide quality healthcare but recognitions like this prove it.”

Hospitals are rated in the Chartis rankings using publicly available data sets and scored across eight performance pillars. According to the Chartis website, “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.”

Tactics employed by Watertown Regional Medical Center to help achieve high-quality and safe patient care include:

• Recruiting, training, and retaining the very best providers, nurses, and support staff.
• Utilizing best practices around infection control and harms and readmission protocols.
• Forming a dedicated quality and education team to monitor and ensure best practices are being met.
• Promoting a culture focused on improvement.
• Requiring board-certification for physicians.

“During an era of profound uncertainty for rural healthcare, the Top 100 rural hospitals continue to provide a unique lens through which we can identify innovation and inspiration for how to deliver high quality care to increasingly vulnerable populations,” said Michael Topchik, National Leader, The Chartis Center for Rural Health. “We’re delighted to be able to recognize all this year’s Top 100 but especially the more than 40 first-time recipients across both categories. It’s wonderful to see so many new facilities join the ranks of our Top 100 alumni.”

Now in its 14th year, the INDEX is the industry’s most comprehensive and objective assessment of rural hospital performance. Featuring a methodology utilizing publicly available data, the INDEX is leveraged nationwide by rural hospitals, health systems with rural affiliates, hospital associations, and state offices of rural health to measure and monitor performance across a variety of areas impacting hospital operations and finance.