North Valley Hospital recently received high marks from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for providing quality care.

North Valley received a five-star rating for patients’ experiences, which is determined by the results of a national survey that asks patients about their experiences during a recent hospital stay.

The hospital also received a four-star rating overall which shows how well a hospital performed, on average, compared to other hospitals in the U.S. The ratings examine a variety of quality measures that reflect common conditions treated at hospitals, from heart attacks to pneumonia.

Ratings range from one to five stars. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Kalispell Regional Medical Center was one of three hospitals in Montana and one of 293 in the nation to earn an Overall Hospital Quality five-star rating from CMS.

The HealthCenter ranked better than the national average for having low readmission rates. Returning to the hospital for unplanned care disrupts patients’ lives, increases their risk of harmful events like healthcare-associated infections, and costs more money, according to a release from Kalispell Regional Healthcare.

The HealthCenter also received a four-star rating.

“The CMS Star Rating is one of several quality ratings tools that rank hospitals on patient experience, processes, outcomes, patient safety, and cost,” said Doug Nelson, MD, KRH Chief Medical Officer. “We’re very proud of our high rankings; however, the quality measures are also tools that help us understand how we can continue to improve.”

KRMC was named among the nation’s top 100 rural and community hospitals in 2018. NVH was designated a Baby Friendly Hospital, a project the Birth Center and all NVH employees worked toward for more than five years.

KRH has multiple initiatives underway that seek to improve the quality of care provided to patients, according to a release. For example, the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus program, which has been implemented in nine KRH primary care clinics, focuses on improved patient access, quality of care and reductions in cost of care by providing case management, access to integrated services such as diabetes management and behavioral health within the primary care clinic and focusing on a broad array of quality measures that indicate better health outcomes for the patients and the overall population.

“For us, measuring quality and outcomes for our patients is not about showing how good we are,” Nelson said. “It’s about increasing years of life and the quality of those years for the entire population we serve.”