MARSHALL — Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center has received a high quality rating, based on nationwide data. Last week, the hospital was among the medical facilities that received a five-star rating from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Medicare’s Care Compare website rates medical facilities out of five stars based on both quality of care data and patient surveys.

“I am incredibly proud of our Avera Marshall team for achieving a five-star rating. We strive to continually improve the care and experience we provide our patients and their families. This recognition is the result of efforts made by each member of our team,” Avera Marshall regional president and CEO Debbie Streier said in an announcement last week.

On Wednesday, Streier said this is the first time Avera Marshall has received a five-star rating from CMS.

The Care Compare website allows people to look up and compare different types of Medicare providers, including hospitals and nursing homes. According to Care Compare, star ratings are given to health care facilities based on data from across different areas of health care quality. Some of those areas include mortality rates, safety of care, how often patients are readmitted to the hospital, and how quickly hospitals provide emergency and other kinds of care.

“There are multiple areas that we submit data on,” Streier said. CMS also looks at multiple years of data in evaluating health care facilities, she said.

CMS updates hospital quality ratings annually, Streier said. On July 26, data from 4,000 hospitals was refreshed on Care Compare. That’s when Avera Marshall received its five-star rating.

Avera Marshall is one of 16 hospitals in the state of Minnesota with an overall five-star ranking, according to the Care Compare website. Some of the other five-star facilities listed included hospitals in Minneapolis, Duluth, Mankato, and the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Rochester.

“This rating is a testament to the high quality of health care available to people right here in Marshall. We have strong scores for our data related to quality and outcomes,” said Dr. Timothy Mok, chief medical officer at Avera Marshall. “Our health care workers are dedicated to providing great care to every patient at every encounter. Earning the highest possible star rating reflects that commitment. It’s an honor to be recognized for the efforts our care teams strive for every day.”

The Care Compare website didn’t have data from Avera Marshall for all of the different quality topics that factor into a star rating. However, the data did show that Avera Marshall patients spent less time in the emergency department than the national average of 127 minutes. The rate of hospital patients readmitted after receiving care, and the rates of certain types of medical complications, were also about the same as the national rate.

The Care Compare website also gives star ratings based on patient surveys about the care they received. Avera Marshall currently has a patient survey rating of four out of five stars.

Streier said Avera Marshall’s five-star quality rating was a big achievement, both because it was hard to do, and because it showed the commitment that staff at Avera Marshall, Avera Tyler and Avera Granite Falls had to caring for people.

“It’s about the patient, and it’s about the services we provide to the community,” she said. Streier said they will continue to build on that focus into the future.

In a news release last week, the Avera Health system said it had a total of five facilities and affiliates that received five-star ratings, including Avera Marshall. Other sites with five stars included the Avera Heart Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D., Avera Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, S.D., Avera St. Luke’s Hospital in Aberdeen, S.D., and Lakes Regional Healthcare in Spirit Lake, Iowa.