With numerous rural hospital closures in recent years, some organizations are still proving that profitable healthcare can work outside America’s urban areas

Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading provider of affordable and interoperable healthcare information technology (IT) solutions and services, congratulates New Mexico’s Guadalupe County Hospital, a Medsphere client, for being named one of America’s 100 best rural and community hospitals, according to the Chartis Center for Rural Health. This is the third consecutive year Guadalupe County has been so honored.

Using the Hospital Strength Index as a framework, the Chartis Center evaluated hospital quality using eight metrics: inpatient market share, outpatient market share, quality, outcomes, patient perspective, cost, charge and financial efficiency.

“Rural hospitals around the country are disappearing at an alarming rate, so it’s encouraging to see recognition for those organizations that are thriving and serving as effective models for the industry,” said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald. “I am personally thrilled for CEO Christina Campos and her team as I know how hard they work to provide quality care as the only hospital over a pretty wide area. But the challenges Guadalupe regularly faces and overcomes are not truly unique, demonstrating to other rural facilities that they can run a profitable operation even in more remote areas.”     

Guadalupe runs Medsphere’s CareVue electronic health record and RCM Cloud solutions and uses both to make full use of clinical data, ensuring a better bottom line. By making the CareVue EHR available through a subscription service, Medsphere provides comprehensive healthcare IT to any organization regardless of size or budget.

About Guadalupe County Hospital

Guadalupe County Hospital is a general medical facility providing adult and pediatric care. With a full-time staff of 45, including administrative staff, this 10-bed acute care hospital handles roughly 250 admissions and 2500 emergency room visits per year. Located in Santa Rosa, N.M., 117 miles east of Albuquerque on Interstate 40, Guadalupe serves the entire county of fewer than 4700 people.