Andalusia Regional Hospital this week became the first Alabama hospital to be included three times on the Thomson Reuters list of 100 Top Hospitals.

The annual list, which included two other Alabama hospitals, was published Monday in Modern Healthcare magazine.

Thomson Reuters considers overall performance, patient care outcomes, efficiency and financial stability in making its selections for the list. They used public information, most related to Medicare and Medicaid services, to make the determinations. Hospitals do not apply for the award, nor do they pay to market the results.

ARH also was included on the Top 100 Hospitals list for 2005 and 2007.

Area residents are fortunate to have access to the service provided at the 113-bed, acute care, medical-surgical facility. Local access to specialty care is amazingly high for a community our size, and the services available will become even more important when a major cancer treatment center opens on the campus of ARH. While ARH will not operate the center, its administrators worked hard to get it here.

While all of that is great for local residents, ARH’s most recent award is related more to the efficiency of services provided. Thomson Reuters estimates that millions of health care dollars could be saved annually if more hospitals operated at the levels of those on the Top 100 list.

We congratulate the employees of ARH on this very noteworthy accomplishment.