By Trish Svoboda

Clay County Medical Center is one of 16 Kansas hospitals ranked among the top recommended hospitals in the country by patients. Data was collected from a national questionnaire filled out by patients from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, or HCAHPS., from October 2021 to September 2022. Becker’s Hospital Review then compiled lists of high-scoring hospitals with that data, released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. As well as being recommended, CCMC also got high scores for physician-patient/nurse-patient communication, staff responsiveness, and patient experience.

From July 2021 to June 2022, the physician communication rating was gathered from answers to three HCAHPS questions. Based on a patient’s stay, they were asked how well they felt their physicians communicated, and if they felt they were treated with courteousness and respect. Of the 16 Kansas hospitals ranked, 10 received 5 stars, with CCMC being one of them.

Also during that time period, using the same criteria, patients were asked about communication with their nurses. Again, CCMC received five stars among eight other listed Kansas hospitals. CCMC also received five stars for their patient experience, which is calculated by taking the average of 10 topics from the HCAHPS data collected from October 2021 to September 2022