LAKE CITY — Stewart Memorial Hospital and Clinics announced it has earned a 2025 Performance Leadership Award for excellence in patient perspective.

Compiled by The Chartis Center for Rural Health, the Performance Leadership Awards program recognizes top quartile performance (i.e., 75th percentile or above) among rural hospitals in quality, outcomes, and/or patient perspective.

“We are honored to be recognized for our strong patient perspective scores,” said Linn Block, chief executive officer of Stewart Memorial Hospital and Clinics. “This award reflects our team’s ongoing commitment to listening to our patients, understanding their needs, and delivering compassionate, high-quality care close to home. Every staff member plays a role in making sure our patients feel valued and supported through every step of their health care journey.”

The Performance Leadership Awards program is based on the results of the Chartis Rural Hospital Performance INDEX, a comprehensive and objective framework for assessing how rural hospitals are performing. INDEX benchmarks are relied upon by rural hospitals, health systems with rural footprints, hospital associations, and state offices of rural health to measure performance across multiple areas impacting hospital operations and finance.