Wheaton recognized with quality award for rural health
Nov. 20, 2025
Contact:
Nathan Aamodt
Sanford Health Media Relations
(701) 200-6080/nathan.aamodt@sanfordhealth.org
WHEATON, Minn. – As part of National Rural Health Day, Sanford Wheaton has been recognized with a 2025 Performance Leadership Award for excellence in quality. This is the fourth consecutive year Sanford Wheaton has received this honor.
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.
“This recognition doesn’t happen without our dedicated staff, who go above and beyond to make sure our patients can eliminate travel and receive the care they need right here at home,” said Chelsie Falk, Sanford Wheaton chief executive officer. “Our patients should never have to choose between quality of health care and convenience of travel. We take great responsibility in providing our communities with the latest, most up-to-date, technological advances in health care.”
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.
A full list of rural hospitals honored with a Performance Leadership Award for quality can be found here.
About Sanford Health
Sanford Health, the largest rural health system in the United States, is dedicated to transforming the health care experience and providing access to world-class health care in America’s heartland. Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the organization has 53,000 employees and serves over 2 million patients and nearly 425,000 health plan members across the upper Midwest including South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Iowa, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The integrated nonprofit health system includes a network of 56 hospitals, 288 clinic locations, 147 senior care communities, 4,000 physicians and advanced practice providers and nearly 1,500 active clinical trials and studies. The organization’s transformational virtual care initiative brings patients closer to care with access to 78 specialties. Learn more about Sanford Health’s commitment to shaping the future of rural health care across the lifespan at sanfordhealth.org or Sanford Health News.
