MANISTIQUE, Mich. (WZMQ) – An Upper Peninsula hospital has earned national recognition for excellence in rural healthcare.
Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital has received a five-star rating from the National Rural Rating System for the fourth quarter of 2025.
“Medicare has had a five-star rating for years that a lot of us small hospitals are just not able to participate in, because we do not have the volume that’s required,” said Schoolcraft Memorial CEO Robert Mach. “This rating allows us to participate in that five-star rating scale. I think it just shows our commitment to quality care and patient safety. We have a wonderful quality department here, several individuals who work really, really hard at improving our quality scores.”
A major consideration for the rating is the findings of patient satisfaction surveys, which were overwhelmingly positive.
“This five-star rating shows our commitment to our rural community as a whole,” said Medical-Surgical ER Nurse Manager Jodie Morrison. “Every patient is either a neighbor, a friend, and with that kind of care, you get the results that we do.”
Mach says that hospitals in rural areas face a number of unique challenges, from staffing shortages to financial burdens.
“The federal government’s paying less and less and less as we do more and more and more,” he explained. “We are one of the only businesses where we charge you a dollar, and we get paid 40 cents on that dollar. It makes it really challenging for any hospital to provide services and take care of our community.”
The hospital has found ways to overcome those obstacles thanks to its dedicated team, as well as critical partnerships with outside organizations.
“One of the new things we’ve added in our emergency department is our affiliation with the McLaren Stroke Network, which includes an in-house computer system that connects directly to an interventional neurologist,” said Morrison. “That means they get quicker care when it’s needed the most. Also, our physicians all have access to our specialty clinics—ortho, podiatry, urology.”
By providing a range of specialized care options, Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital is able to serve a broad demographic.
“We offer such a breadth of services that we have patients travel from all over the U.P.—even from Lower Michigan and Wisconsin—to come here,” Mach said. “There are some services you can only get here, at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital, in the U.P. Marquette doesn’t even offer them.”
Mach says the way the hospital operates also allows Schoolcraft Memorial to better serve the public.
“We are one of four independent critical access hospitals in the U.P.,” he said. “I believe there are only seven or eight left in the whole state of Michigan. Most critical access hospitals are owned by the big conglomerate corporations now, so we work really hard at keeping our independence. That’s the right thing to do for our patients. We can make decisions here locally that benefit our community, where sometimes if you’re owned by a big system, you’re not able to make those decisions.”
Above all, Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital says the best possible healthcare experience comes from caring for each patient as if they were a loved one.
“It’s a small community, rural community,” said Morrison. “Patients know that they can trust us, and they know that we will take care of them like they’re our own.”
“We want to treat every patient like they were our mom or dad,” Mach added. “As a small hospital, we’re treating our neighbors, our family members, and our mom and dad, really. It’s really important that we keep that focus that everything we do is at the benefit of the patient.”
Schoolcraft Memorial thanks its employees, providers, and care teams for making the hospital’s five-star rating possible. For more information on Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital and its available services, visit scmh.org.
