Despite being one of the many hospitals in Kentucky and the nation that is experiencing serious financial woes currently, the Clinton County Hospital has been listed in another “best” ranking recently.

The most recent favorable ranking showed the Clinton County Hospital to be one of only seven hospitals in the state of Kentucky that received the highest rating, a five star ranking, in the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey.

Most Kentucky hospitals received three or four stars on the survey that was completed by patients who had stays in the hospital between July 2013 and June 2014.

Clinton County Hospital Administrator J.D. Mullins told the Clinton County News that this latest accolade from survey service.

“This star rating system uses the entire survey results. Although you can never please everyone, this certainly shows how hard the employees of Clinton County Hospital try to do just that,”Mullins told the Clinton County News Monday afternoon. “I want to congratulate and thank all the employees of the Hospital for their loyalty and devotion. Job well done.”

The rating system also saw six Kentucky hospitals receive a two-star rating, the lowest received by any hospital located in Kentucky.

The survey involved patient response to questions regarding satisfaction levels in regard to how their care was handled by their doctors, nurses and the hospital staff in areas such as communications, pain management, facility cleanliness and discharge preparations.

A portion of the survey also asked patients if they would recommend the hospital to others.

The five-star rating received by the Clinton County Hospital was based on over 300 completed surveys returned by patients. The local hospital also had one of the highest survey return rates listed from Kentucky facilities.

Patient surveys given to Clinton County patients were returned at a 58 percent rate, which was second best in Kentucky among the 75 or so hospitals in the state that were listed in the final results.

Only Columbia’s Westlake Regional Hospital had a higher survey return rate than Clinton County, with 88 percent of it’s patient surveys being returned.

The surveys involved hospitals across Kentucky and the nation, with small community hospitals such as Clinton County being involved, as well as hospitals located in major metropolitan cities like Louisville and Lexington in Kentucky.

Just last month, the Clinton County News reported that the Clinton County Hospital also had received high marks in one particular category of that same survey.

In that article, it was noted that the local facility had scored among the top 52 hospitals in the nation in regards to the cleanliness of patient rooms and bathrooms.

Although the most recent news of a favorable rating is good news for Clinton County residents who make up the primary patient base for the local facility, the news also went out across Kentucky, being one of this week’s featured health related news releases issued from the Kentucky Health News.

The Kentucky Health News is an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

In it’s release this week, the Kentucky Health News noted that The star ratings can be found on Medicare’s Hospital Compare website and are based on a patient satisfaction survey given to randomly selected patients, not just those on Medicare, at nearly 3,500 Medicare-certified acute care hospitals across the country. The ratings are based on patient admissions between July 2013 and June 2014. Hospitals were not included if they did not have enough surveys completed during that period.

The survey, also known as Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey, includes questions about patient satisfaction related to how their doctors, nurses and hospital staff communicated with them, how well their pain was addressed during their hospital stay, how well they were prepared to go home, cleanliness of the hospital and if they would recommend the hospital to others.

Kaiser Health News analyzed the data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and found that 76 Kentucky hospitals were included in the patient satisfaction star ratings and 17 Kentucky hospitals were not. Kaiser found that the average for all of the rated hospitals in Kentucky was 3.4 stars, one-third, or 25, got four stars; half, or 38, got three.

HealthWatch USA, a non-profit organization that promotes health care transparency and patient advocacy based in Somerset, further analyzed the data and named the hospitals in each state by its star rating.

The seven with five-star ratings are: Clinton County Hospital, Marshall County Hospital, Westlake Regional Hospital, Saint Joseph Martin, Rockcastle County Hospital, Pikeville Medical Center and Russell County Hospital.

The six with two-star ratings are: Georgetown Community Hospital, Harlan ARH Hospital, Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center, Spring View Hospital in Lebanon, University of Louisville Hospital and Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital in Somerset.