Thomson 100 Top Hospitals (2006)
Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, formerly Spruce Pine Community Hospital, was named a Thomson Top 100 Hospital for the second year in a row.

Hospitals were rated on eight factors that reflect clinical outcomes and efficiency, financial strength and market growth. These factors were patient mortality, medical complications, patient safety, length of stay, expenses, profitability, cash-to-debt ratio and growth in patient volume. Researchers evaluated 2,897 short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals grouped into five categories: major teaching hospitals, other teaching hospitals, large community hospitals, medium-sized community hospitals and small community hospitals.

CareScience (2006)
Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, formerly Spruce Pine Community Hospital, was named a 2006 CareScience^TM Select Practice National Quality Leader in the category of pneumonia.

As a recipient of the 2006 Select Practice Quality Leader award, Blue Ridge Regional Hospital achieved superior performance in care of patients in the disease group of pneumonia, as identified by the CareScience Select Practice methodology, which utilizes both quality and efficiency indices to track a hospital's performance. The Quality index is calculated by combining the outcome deviations for mortality, morbidity and complications into a single quality measure for each facility.

Cleverley & Associates 5-Star (2006)
Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, formerly Spruce Pine Community Hospital, has been recognized as a Community Value 5-Star Hospital by Cleverley & Associates (Columbus, Ohio), a leading healthcare financial consulting firm specializing in custom data analyses and reporting for healthcare providers, consultants and vendors. The company's primary focus is to provide healthcare providers with solutions and recommendations that will enhance their financial performance.

Solucient Top 100 Hospitals (2005)
Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, formerly Spruce Pine Community Hospital, was named one of the nation's top performance improvement leader hospitals by Solucient^®, the nation's leading source of healthcare information products.

As a Solucient Top 100 Hospital, BRRH was recognized for its hospital-wide performance improvement over the last five years—which includes the installation of technology such as the VITREA work station—resulting in better clinical outcomes and efficiency, increased financial strength and growing patient volumes.

Joint Commission Accreditation (2005)
By demonstrating compliance with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's national standards for healthcare quality and safety, Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, formerly Spruce Pine Community Hospital, and Blue Ridge Home Care have earned the Joint Commission's Gold Seal of Approval^TM.

In becoming accredited, Blue Ridge Home Care was evaluated against a set of national standards by a Joint Commission surveyor experienced in the delivery of home care services.

The awards of accreditation for both facilities are for three-year periods ending in 2008.

The Joint Commission evaluates and accredits nearly 16,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the United States, including 8,000 hospitals and home care organizations, and more than 8,000 other healthcare organizations that provide long-term care, assisted living, behavioral healthcare, and laboratory and ambulatory care services.

Cleverley & Associates Top 100 (2005)
Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, formerly Spruce Pine Community Hospital, was recognized as one of the top 100 ranked Community Value Hospitals in the U.S. by Cleverley & Associates. Cleverley & Associates, a leading healthcare financial consulting firm specializing in operations benchmarking and performance enhancement strategies, released the findings as part of its new publication, The State of the Hospital Industry - 2005 Edition.