Beaufort Memorial Ranked Among Nation’s Great Community Hospitals by Becker’s Hospital Review

Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) is one of 153 hospitals included in the 2023 Becker’s Hospital Review (Becker’s) list of Great Community Hospitals released Friday, July 28. Beaufort Memorial was one of only three Lowcountry hospitals and the only in Beaufort, Jasper or Hampton Counties to make the list.

Becker’s, the leading hospital magazine for hospital business news and analysis for healthcare system executives, lauded the hospitals that made the list for their “clinical excellence, compassionate care and economic impact on their communities” as well as “above-and-beyond commitment to their communities.”

“It is an honor to be recognized on a national level for the contributions and quality care we provide to our community,” said Beaufort Memorial President and CEO Russell Baxley. “The thanks and congratulations belong to our amazing staff. This type of recognition can only be achieved with a hospitalwide commitment to our core values including safety and compassion.”

Ranking Process

Becker’s editorial team selected hospitals for inclusion based on several national rankings and ratings organizations, including U.S. News & World Report, Healthgrades, CMS Care Compare and The Leapfrog Group.

U.S. News & World Report annually publishes its Best Hospitals rankings based on analysis of millions of hospital visits and admissions. In addition, U.S. News rates hospitals for their performance in treating more prevalent surgical procedures and medical conditions. To determine which will be considered a “High Performing Hospital,” risk-adjusted outcomes, such as 30-day mortality, 30-day readmission and length of stay, are assessed to determine how well hospitals perform the procedure at the time of care and also if they were able to prevent an unplanned re-visit to the hospital due to the same condition. BMH was named a 2023-24 High Performing Hospital for Stroke and Knee Replacement. Beaufort Memorial is also one of only three South Carolina hospitals with advanced certification for hip and knee replacement from The Joint Commission, the accrediting body for all hospitals in the nation.

Healthgrades evaluates hospital quality for conditions and procedures based solely on clinical outcomes to produce their hospital quality awards and rankings. Included is the Patient Safety Excellence Award™ which recognizes hospitals in the top 10% in the nation for patient safety, with the lowest occurrences of 14 preventable patient safety events. BMH is one of three hospitals in South Carolina to have earned the Patient Safety Excellence Award three years in a row (2023, 2022 and 2021).

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) works with the nations more than 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals to publicly report quality performance information on its Care Compare website. BMH has an overall three-star rating.

The Leapfrog Group, a national watchdog organization, looks at how well hospitals protect patients from errors, accidents, injuries and infections to produce their safety grades and select the nation’s Top Hospitals. Based on more than 30 national performance measures that are updated each fall and spring, their grading system is peer-reviewed, fully transparent and freely available to the public. Beaufort Memorial was one of only three general hospitals in South Carolina and only 5% in the nation to earn the Top Hospital distinction in 2022.

“The caliber of staff at Beaufort Memorial Hospital is why we’ve been ranked in the top 5% across the nation for quality and safety,” Baxley said. “Every one of our team members understands how important it is to provide safe, quality care to each of our patients, and we allow safety to inform every intervention that occurs in our hospital.”

Expanding Care

Becker’s also described the community hospitals as “vital pieces of the overall healthcare system, expanding care access to patients who might otherwise need to travel great distances or face other barriers to care.”

Beaufort Memorial’s efforts to expand access to care across Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton Counties includes a community health team that takes a 40-foot mobile health unit out to area neighborhoods and community events to provide free screenings; providing free transportation for 798 patients to/from appointments at BMH facilities; regularly recruiting new primary and specialty care providers to the community, numbering more than a dozen in 2022 and 10 in 2021; providing more than $31.6 million in charity and uncompensated care in addition to $1.5 million worth of primary and specialty care, screenings, lab tests, imaging procedures and surgeries to patients served by the Good Neighbor Medical Clinic and AccessHealth Lowcountry; and offering the area’s only sickle cell clinic. Additional details can be found in the Beaufort Memorial 2022 Report to the Community at BeaufortMemorial.org/RTC2022.

In its description of BMH, Becker’s made note of the innovative employee programs at Beaufort Memorial that are typically seen only at larger institutions, including the homebuying financial assistance program, affordable employee housing, scholarship and career development opportunities, discounted childcare and take-home family meals, employee mental health programs, mobile wellness screenings and more.

“Our team makes me proud every single day,” said Baxley. Their compassion, safety-mindedness, innovation and skill are keys to our success. Those same qualities are what continues to bring us national recognition.”

Learn about the other awards and recognition received by Beaufort Memorial on our Awards and Recognition page at BeaufortMemorial.org/Awards.