AUSTIN, Texas — A hospital watchdog group is raising concerns about several local facilities after giving them "C" ratings for things like cleanliness and infections.
KVUE spoke with the hospital systems and health care professionals about what this means for patients.
Dell Seton Medical Center and three Baylor Scott and White facilities all fell from "B" ratings last spring, according to the patient advocacy group Leapfrog. The ratings are based on factors like hospital leadership, cleanliness and infection rates.
"If the nurse has 6 to 8 patients, we're not going to be able to be at every bedside. But we have other staff that should be there to also help us. So, to catch the infections and to catch issues," Lindsay Spinney, a neonatal ICU nurse with Ascension and a member of the National Nurses United Union, said.
The National Nurses United Union advocates for better hospital staffing and safety.
Officials with Ascension provided this response in regards to Dell Seton's C rating:
"In response to the Spring 2024 Hospital Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group for Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, we acknowledge these findings. We are committed to continuously improving our quality programs and safety protocols, including ongoing robust monitoring of patient quality and safety indicators, reducing hospital acquired conditions and employing enhanced technology solutions. We recognize the value of the Leapfrog Group's assessment in our ongoing commitment to patient safety. While Leapfrog is one of many evaluator programs, we take their feedback seriously, and are focused on achieving substantial improvements by the next review period. As always, we remain dedicated to our patient safety standards without compromise.”
Another of the four local hospitals that received a C rating is Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Pflugerville.
Baylor Scott and White officials disputed Leapfrog's ratings for the Round Rock campus, saying the data pulled is not the same as what's shown on a federal hospital quality rating website:
"We are committed to providing safe, high-quality care, and we closely and continuously measure our performance across a variety of objective systems and metrics considered strong indicators of patient safety.
While we do not have full insight into Leapfrog’s proprietary process, we know it utilizes metrics from certain time periods from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare website; and on that site, CMS has rated Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Round Rock five out of five stars on performance across quality categories including safety of care, mortality, patient experience, readmission rates and timely and effective care," the hospital said in response.
But Spinney said top-of-the-line safety should be the bare minimum for all hospitals.
"I think if there were more eyes on the patients and working with the patients regularly, we wouldn't have these issues with falls, with bedsores, with infections, with any of these things," Spinney said.
These institutions say their priority is giving patients high-quality care, despite what this survey found.
For a list of how other hospitals in the area scored, click here.