In Marquette County, and indeed, the Upper Peninsula, the lion’s share of the attention on medical care facilities usually ends up focused on UP Health System-Marquette.

And not unreasonably, we might note. The facility is designed as a regional referral center with many times the bed capacity of other U.P. medical facilities.

It houses many state-of-the-art diagnostic devices as well as physicians, technicians and others in a wide variety of medical specialties not available elsewhere.

In other words, if you’re really sick or badly injured in the U.P., you’re probably going to be sent to Marquette for treatment.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t great medical care being provided at other U.P. hospitals. Quite the contrary.

Take UP Health System-Bell in Ishpeming. The modestly-sized facility has just been recognized as a 2021 Top 100 Critical Access Hospital in the United States by The Chartis Group.

Regarded as one of the industry’s most significant designations of performance excellence, the Top 100 Critical Access Hospitals award is based upon the results of the Hospital Strength INDEX.

UPHS-Bell is the only hospital in the Upper Peninsula to receive this designation, according to a facility press release.

“We are very pleased to be honored as one of the top critical access hospitals in the country,” Mitch Leckelt, CEO of UPHS-Bell, said in the release. “I would like to thank all of our employees, volunteers, and medical staff who have made this possible through their hard work and dedication. It’s because of their tireless commitment to our patients and our community that we were able to be recognized as a premier critical access hospital.”

We’re pleased that Bell, in the long shadow of sister facility UPHS-Marquette, has found good ways to distinguish itself.

We offer our congratulations on a job well done.