The facility specializes in cancer care, orthopedics, pain management, wound & hyperbaric medicine and women’s health. It is a critical access hospital and provides inpatient and outpatient services along with a 24-hour emergency department to the local community.

The 139-bed hospital is located in northeast Michigan among vast forest and endless clear water. The hospital offers a variety of medical specialties and has 251 physicians and mid-level practitioners on the active medical staff. It is also accredited by the Joint Commission.

MyMichigan Health owns the facility. The Midland-based nonprofit organization specializes in managing hospitals and is working on several other projects across northern Michigan. The hospital had a financial loss of $8 million in 2022, but the company expects a much better fiscal year in 2023. The losses are largely because of the high costs associated with the construction of the Alpena patient tower and other large projects.

Recently, the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the hospital an overall rating of five out of five stars and a 4-out-of-5 patient survey rating. The ratings are based on numerous measures of quality of care and patient experience, such as how often the hospital is recommended by patients. The hospital’s score in the patient experience category included six different questions, and it was above the national average in seven of them. The only area that the hospital scored below average was in the’safety of care’ category.

Other key areas included the ability of doctors to communicate with patients and how promptly they were able to get appointments with their doctors. The hospital also had a low rate of readmissions within 30 days. MyMichigan Health also scored well in other categories, including the amount of time that nurses spent with their patients and the cleanliness of the hospital.

The hospital’s physician-to-patient ratio was also a good match with the national average. Its overall rating was above the state average and was one of only a few Michigan hospitals to make the list.

The hospital has a long history of serving the local community and has been an integral part of the area’s healthcare for more than a century. Its current ownership, the MyMichigan Health system, is bringing in new employees and upgrading the facility to improve services for patients.