LAURINBURG — Scotland Memorial Hospital recently received a four-star rating from The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems for patient care.

The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems collects information from surveys completed by hospital inpatients in order to determine their rating.

“The four-star rating is evidence of our relentless pursuit of excellence in the high quality care that we provide to our community,” said Dr. Cheryl Davis, Scotland Health Care System’s vice president of medical affairs.

The survey, taken by patients, is the first national, standardized and publicly reported survey of patients’ opinion of hospital care.

Sonja Frye, Scotland Memorial’s manager of patient experience, said that the data was collected from the July 2013 to June 2014 fiscal year.

“The survey responses provide us with information on the patients’ perception of the care we provide. A four- or five-star ranking in any category is extremely difficult to obtain,” Frye said.

According to information from www.hcahpsonline.org, the survey is designed to accomplish three goals:

— Make meaningful comparisons between hospitals in domains that are important to consumers.

— Publicly report survey results to give hospitals incentive to improve patient care.

— Enhance public accountability in health care by providing better transparency.

“This four-star ranking is something only 35 percent of the hospitals in the country achieved ” Frye said.“These survey results clearly tell us that patients believe we’re doing an excellent job of taking care of them. We think Scotland Memorial Hospital is a very special hospital and this is just validation of the kind of remarkable care you can receive here.”

The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores four consecutive quarters of patient surveys that are publicly reported on the Hospital Compare website, www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare.