- Three Florida Hospitals scored a ‘D’ rating in hospital watchdog Leapfrog’s biannual ratings
- Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, Halifax Health Medical Center – Port Orange, and Halifax Health Medical Center – Daytona Beach were the lowest-scoring facilities in the state
- Across the three hospitals, surgery complications and communication issues were prevalent
- More than 70 Florida hospitals scored an ‘A’ rating
Three Florida Hospitals — Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, Halifax Health Medical Center – Port Orange, and Halifax Health Medical Center – Daytona Beach — all received a ‘D’ safety grade by hospital watchdog Leapfrog in its latest rankings released this week.
The trio of facilities were the only hospitals in the state to score lower than a C. All three also received a ‘D’ or lower ranking in the last iteration of Leapfrog’s evaluations, with Halifax Health Medical Center – Port Orange actually improving from an ‘F’ score, making it the lowest-rated hospital in Florida.
Tallahassee Memorial was found to have several issues in performing surgery, scoring in the red on the ‘Dangerous Objects Left in the Patient’s Body,” “Blood Leakage,” and “Death From Serious Treatable Complications” metrics.
Further, Leapfrog identified a series of safety issues including a high rate of dangerous bed sores, patient falls or injuries, and what it defines as harmful events.
“These potentially avoidable safety events represent opportunities for improving patient care. Staff should document when errors happen, discuss how the error occurred, and develop a plan to prevent future errors,” says the report.
Meanwhile, Halifax Health Medical Center – Port Orange was found to have a prevalence of sepsis onset in patients following surgery, while also exhibiting a high rate of general complications during invasive procedures.
The hospital greatly suffered from a litany of poor scores across the ‘Safety Problems’ metrics, scoring in the red for all except “Dangerous Blood Clots” and “Air or Gas Bubbles in the Blood.”
The Port Orange Hospital was rated to have poor communication between doctors and nurses, as well as a slow response time compared to higher-scoring hospitals.
Halifax Health Medical Center – Daytona Beach, whose best score since 2019 has been a ‘C,’ shared similar issues to its Port Orange network sibling, including a paltry response time and poor communication between staff members.
“Hospital leaders are aware of the hospital’s patient safety problems, work with hospital staff to fix them, and share their efforts with the larger community. Leaders also make it a priority to learn about and use the best methods to prevent errors and are held accountable for identifying and reducing unsafe practices,” Leapfrog states.
Conversely, more than 70 hospitals in Florida earned an ‘A’ grade, with the Orlando Health and HCA Florida networks performing particularly well.