Healthcare Insights
Top 20 critical access hospitals by discharges
Accidents can happen anywhere. If you ever unexpectedly need urgent medical care in a rural area, hundreds of miles from a major medical center, you’ll be grateful for the establishment of critical access hospitals (CAHs). A critical access hospital provides essential access to high-quality healthcare in rural communities.
Definitive Healthcare tracks more than 7,300 hospitals in our HospitalView product. Using those data, we reviewed the number of patient discharges for more than 1,350 critical access hospitals. The average number of discharges for these hospitals was 394.
Check out the following list to learn about the CAHs with the most discharges.
| Rank | Hospital name | City | State | Discharges | # staffed beds | Explore dataset |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hudson Hospital | Hudson | WI | 2,884 | 25 | Explore |
| 2 | Spectrum Health Gerber Memorial | Fremont | MI | 2,051 | 25 | Explore |
| 3 | Astria Sunnyside Hospital | Sunnyside | WA | 2,005 | 25 | Explore |
| 4 | Moore County Hospital District | Dumas | TX | 1,989 | 19 | Explore |
| 5 | Bingham Memorial Hospital | Blackfoot | ID | 1,889 | 25 | Explore |
| 6 | Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital | St Johnsbury | VT | 1,737 | 25 | Explore |
| 7 | Spectrum Health Pennock | Hastings | MI | 1,688 | 25 | Explore |
| 8 | Missouri Baptist Sullivan Hospital | Sullivan | MO | 1,675 | 25 | Explore |
| 9 | Cobre Valley Regional Medical Center | Globe | AZ | 1,662 | 25 | Explore |
| 10 | Adventist Health Howard Memorial | Willits | CA | 1,651 | 25 | Explore |
| 11 | St Thomas More Hospital | Canon City | CO | 1,642 | 25 | Explore |
| 12 | Ridgecrest Regional Hospital | Ridgecrest | CA | 1,632 | 25 | Explore |
| 13 | Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital | Hollister | CA | 1,599 | 25 | Explore |
| 14 | OSF St Francis Hospital | Escanaba | MI | 1,593 | 25 | Explore |
| 15 | Uvalde Memorial Hospital | Uvalde | TX | 1,588 | 21 | Explore |
| 16 | Copley Hospital | Morrisville | VA | 1,574 | 25 | Explore |
| 17 | Sutter Lakeside Hospital | Lakeport | CA | 1,568 | 25 | Explore |
| 18 | Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital | Lebanon | OR | 1,563 | 25 | Explore |
| 19 | CHI St Alexius Health Williston Medical Center | Williston | ND | 1,555 | 25 | Explore |
| 20 | Decatur County Memorial Hospital | Greensburg | IN | 1,536 | 25 | Explore |
Fig. 1 Data is from the Definitive Healthcare HospitalView product and sourced from CMS data and proprietary research. Data accurate as of July 2022.
Which critical access hospital has the most discharges?
The average number of discharges from the top 20 CAHs was 1,754. Hudson Hospital in Wisconsin leads the list for highest number of discharges with 2,884.
As expected from their rural locations, discharges at these CAHs only represent about 6.6% of total discharges from the over 1,350 critical access hospitals across the United States.
While 90% of the top 20 critical access hospitals by discharges have a maximum of 25 staffed beds, Uvalde Memorial Hospital in Uvalde, Texas is one of two Texas CAHs on our list with fewer than 25 staffed beds. Tragically, the rapid access to emergency healthcare provided by CAHs demonstrated its value in May 2022 when 15 victims from the Robb Elementary School shooting were taken to Uvalde Memorial Hospital for care.
What are critical access hospitals?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) certifies eligible hospitals across the United States as CAHs to improve access to healthcare in underserved areas and reduce the financial exposure of rural hospitals. In general, critical access hospitals are facilities that:
- Have fewer than 25 acute care inpatient beds
- Are located more than 35 miles from the nearest hospital (or 15 miles by mountain or secondary roads)
- Maintain an average stay of 96 hours or less
- Must provide 24-hour emergency care services seven days a week
Learn more
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