How safe is your local hospital? Every Tampa Bay hospital graded.
No Tampa Bay hospitals received a failing grade for patient safety but two, including Tampa General, got a C in new rankings released this week by Leapfrog, a national independent nonprofit.
The region’s only Level I trauma center, Tampa General scored below average in more than half a dozen categories, including blood and sepsis infections, surgical wounds splitting open and patient falls and injuries.
Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital rose to a B grade, its highest mark since it was acquired by Orlando Health in 2020. St. Joseph’s Hospital, part of BayCare, in Tampa was rated A.
Three HCA facilities in Florida slipped to D grades, including HCA Florida Citrus Hospital in Inverness. HCA Florida St. Petersburg was ranked C.
Overall, Florida hospitals ranked 13th in the nation for patient safety. For the first time, Leapfrog also assessed metropolitan areas with the Tampa Bay region ranking 16th with roughly 55% of hospitals receiving an A.
Leapfrog began ranking hospitals more than a decade ago in an effort to reduce the more than 200,000 yearly deaths from hospital errors and injuries by publicly recognizing safety and exposing harm. It ranks more than 3,000 acute-care hospitals across the U.S. twice a year on how well they keep patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors, using more than 30 performance measures that hospitals report to the the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Tampa General has received a C in four of its past five rankings. In May 2023, officials said the hospital’s leadership team intended to adopt an “aggressive” plan to meet Leapfrog’s updated best practices and bring the hospital to an A rating.
The Davis Islands hospital is consistently ranked among the nation’s best hospitals by U.S. News and World Report and among the world’s best hospitals by Newsweek, spokesperson Amanda Bevis said on Thursday in an email. It has received two key safety qualifications from the international accreditation organization DNV.
“When compared with other large academic health systems that also treat complex conditions, Tampa General is a national leader on key indicators that are critically important to patient safety and patient outcomes,” said Bevis. “Unfortunately, the Leapfrog Group does not account for the complex conditions that are common at Tampa General and, furthermore, relies on data that in some cases is four years old.”
HCA spokesperson Deb McKell said that 70% of the hospital chain’s Florida facilities earned an A or B grade with nine hospitals improving their score from Leapfrog’s fall ratings.
“The most important role we play at HCA Florida Healthcare is to provide exceptional clinical care in our hospitals,” McKell said in an email. “There are different ways to measure quality and patient safety and we recognize the importance of these types of measurements in supporting our commitment to providing the highest quality of care.”
