For the fourth time in five years, Georgia Trend magazine has named WellStar West Georgia Medical Center the No. 1 Large Hospital in the state for 2017.

WellStar WGMC also placed at the top of Georgia Trend’s annual hospital report in 2013, 2015 and 2016.

Jerry Fulks, President of WellStar WGMC, said earning the top spot is a wonderful achievement made possible by the skills, compassion and teamwork of the hospital’s physicians and team members.

“We all enter into healthcare careers with the intention of helping improve the health of our fellow human beings,” Fulks said. “So it is particularly rewarding when our entire team receives an honor like this on a consistent basis. It shows we are achieving our goals.”

The rankings are determined by grouping together hospitals of similar size and mission and then by comparing data from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which provides publicly available information (hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) on more than 40 quality-related indicators, including patient experience, outcomes of care, process of care, and efficiency and value of the services rendered.

The magazine published its list of the state’s top hospitals in its December issue, including small, medium and large-sized hospitals as well as teaching hospitals.  The large hospital category denoted a medical center having more than 400 beds.

Achieving this honor punctuates two years of many prestigious awards for WellStar West Georgia Medical Center, including being named a Top 100 Hospital by Truven Health Analytics ,” one of 100 Great Community Hospital by Becker’s Hospital Review, and placed on the 2016 Most Wired Hospitals and Health System’s list by the American Hospital Association’s Health Forum in both 2016 and 2017.