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24/7 Wall St.
According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly 50,000 to 100,000 patients die in U.S. hospitals each year as the result of lapses in safety. Recently, the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit promoting transparency and safety in hospitals, released its first-ever Hospital Safety Score. The study analyzed data from 2,652 hospitals from across the country based on 26 different safety-related measures. Each hospital received a score of A, B or C. Grades for hospitals receiving D and F have not yet been finalized.
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Some states have much safer hospital systems than others. In several states, 40 percent or more of reporting hospitals received the best possible score. In others, not one hospital scored better than a B. Based on Leapfrog’s report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the states with the largest percentage of hospitals receiving an A.
In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Melissa Danforth, Interim Senior Director of Leapfrog’s Hospital Ratings, explained the importance of the report compared to other national hospital rankings. “The Hospital Safety Score is unique,” according to Danforth, because Leapfrog only considers what puts a patient’s safety at risk, instead of “looking at the reputation of the hospital.” Danforth said, “We’re really looking to, and wanting to draw attention to, things that could happen to you in a hospital that could kill you.”
Danforth explained that hospitals that received an A grade tended to have close to perfect scores for particular safety measures. Incidence of patient falls, trauma, including broken bones or injuries that occur during a patient’s stay, and the likelihood of receiving a central-line associated bloodstream infection (CABSI) -- a dangerous infection that can occur during certain procedures -- are particularly low among the safest hospitals.
Similarly, the states with the highest percentage of hospitals receiving an A performed better on these important measures compared to the national average. For most of the states on this list, incidents of falls, trauma and CABSIs are below the national average. In Massachusetts, one of the states with the safest hospitals, incidence of particularly bad bedsores -- another critical safety measure -- is one-third the national rate.
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States with the healthiest hospitals do not necessarily have healthy populations. In addition to the safety scores provided by Leapfrog, 24/7 Wall St. also considered a variety of health-related metrics from statehealthfacts.org, part of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Life expectancy, incidence of cancer and diabetes, and heart disease mortality rates were no better in the states with the safest hospitals than the national average.
These are the states with the safest hospitals.
1. Massachusetts
- Hospitals with A grade: 76 percent
- Number of hospitals with A grade: 47
- Life expectancy at birth: 80.1 years
- Cancer death rate per 100,000: 186.6
Massachusetts has one of the healthiest populations in the country. Average life expectancy from birth in the state is 80.1 years, the sixth-highest in the country. The state also has one of the best -- and most expensive -- medical systems in the country. The state’s university system produces some of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. More than three-quarters of the state’s hospitals in Leapfrog’s survey received A grades. Just 20 of the of the state’s 62 reporting hospitals failed to record spotless records for pressure ulcers, and two-thirds had a better-than-average percentage of patients receiving the correct type of antibiotics.
2. Maine
- Hospitals with A grade: 74 percent
- Number of hospitals with A grade: 14
- Life expectancy at birth: 78.68 years
- Cancer death rate per 100,000: 199.7
Citizens of Maine have lower levels of death as a result of heart disease -- 12 percentage points lower than the national average -- but a higher rate of deaths from cancer than the U.S. average. After surgery, patients in Maine hospitals are less likely to experience breathing difficulties or respiratory failure than they would in the average hospital in the United States. All of the 19 Maine hospitals reporting averaged exceptional scores in hand hygiene and care for patients on ventilators. Only three of the state’s 19 graded hospitals received a C.
3. Vermont
- Hospitals with A grade: 50 percent
- Number of hospitals with A grade: 3
- Life expectancy at birth: 79.7 years
- Cancer death rate per 100,000: 179.7
Though only six Vermont hospitals reported information to Leapfrog, three of these earned A grades. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital received above-average ratings for all Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) measures. The hospital also recorded perfect scores in preventing complications related to air embolisms and pressure ulcers. Southwestern Vermont Medical Center and Central Vermont Medical Center similarly recorded a strong performance, with each receiving above-average SCIP ratings. The quality of medical care in the state may well have major benefits for its residents as heart diseases resulted in just 138 deaths per 100,000 people, far less than the nationwide average of 186.5 deaths.
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4. Illinois
- Hospitals with A grade: 48 percent
- Number of hospitals with A grade: 51
- Life expectancy at birth: 78.76 years
- Cancer death rate per 100,000: 191.3
Leapfrog surveyed 106 Illinois hospitals. While nearly half received an A grade, the reviewed state hospitals actually performed worse than the national average on many of the key safety metrics, including the frequency of central-line associated bloodstream infections. However, in many other measures Illinois hospitals performed well, including having a low average of the number of deaths from treatable medical complications after surgery. However, many of the state’s 51 hospitals that received an A scored much better than the national average in preventable deaths and ulcers.
5. Tennessee
- Hospitals with A grade: 48 percent
- Number of hospitals with A grade: 31
- Life expectancy at birth: 76.2 years
- Cancer death rate per 100,000: 206
With higher rates of cancer death and infant mortality than any other state on this list, as well a lower life expectancy, Tennessee needs hospitals that are both good and safe. Fortunately, 48 percent of the state’s hospitals receive A grades from Leapfrog, while only about 33 percent of hospitals receive C grades. For all of Leapfrog’s safe practice measures, Tennessee’s hospitals receive above-average score. One hospital performing especially well is Vanderbilt University Hospital, which received high scores for its surgery-related antibiotic regimens, as well as for its handling of urinary catheters and prevention of blood clots following surgery.
Click here to read the rest of 24/7 Wall St.'s The States with the Safest Hospitals
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HMMM, Interesting,been all over the U.S. worst place I've seen to go to a hospital is the peoples republic of queerafornia.......if you die in the emergency room there, it's likely to go unnoticed for several hours and they may yell at the corpse stating "NO SLEEPING IN THE E.R." then make up a lame excuse as to why it's not their fault you died in their E.R.
I wonder were are the worst. I only was at Key West Hospital so have no idea how it is in the rest of the country.
Thank you for sharing.
They both might have the safest..but depends when..in the winter in those states you're lucky to arrive alive!
Las Vegas has some very scary hospitals! My husbands health is poor and we have seen the inside of several hospitals, one was trying to do tests on him that was meant for another patient, another one he had open heart surgery and in i.c.u. his attending nurse gave him a 12oz can of apple juice immediately after surgery and he threw it up and was rushed back into surgery because his stiches "all" ripped out and they had to re-open him. After he came home, his surgery doctor said he didn't have to take the blood thinner anylonger and 17 days later he suffered a stroke.
The top four are all in democratic strong holds. and doesn't Mass. have an Identical health care paln as "obamacare"? Hmmm I guess the "governement take over of healthcare" (lol) seems to make hospitals safer.
BTW Major dick, the name fits.
oops health care plan not paln.
It may have something to do with lesser tendencies to dip, snort, swallow, inject, smoke, chew, and deep-fry. You can't rehabilitate a '67 Pontiac with one new fender.
@BodyDouble
Nevada is a democratic state, read my post. It has NOTHING to do with democrat or republican.
@BodyDouble ... Good one!
St. Anthony's Hospital in Crown Point, Indiana is a "hell hole" !!!
Another of Mitch Daniels gifts that keeps on giving.
While I applaud the attempt to identify quality improvement opportunities - these surveys are almost universally non-sense. The measures they choose are arbitrary and the institutions are usually self-reporting. This would be akin to measuring the third string quarterback's passer rating the left tackle's bench press and asking the kicker if he feels he could kick a 50 yarder (but not watching practice) then declaring the team's status as Super Bowl Contender or flop.
I am not saying the measures are useless (neither is the third string QB's passer rating), just not a real measure of what people want to know. IF you want to know how you will do at a hospital - ask people who work there (or around). No-one in the hospital is so well compensated that they would be inclined to lie - except the CEO, CFO, etc.
As someone who has worked in a few MA hospitals, I'd like to point out that MA health statistics are extremely skewed (IMHO), as there are still plenty of people showing up in the ER drunk, stoned, overweight, and in generally miserable health, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that these safety stats had also been 'tweaked'. MA is rife with cronyism and other forms of collusion, and fabricating docs or other forms of dissimulation are certainly not beneath them. Sorry if I burst anyone's bubble, but I spent five years there, and I came away singularly unimpressed.
I live near Worcester, MA, and I can assure you that the hospitals there are top-notch. All three of my kids were born at UMass Memorial, where the neonatal care is excellent, and my brother-in-law works at UMass Medical Center. Both of them are from my experience outstanding hospitals. I'm sure the hospitals out in Boston are also outstanding, even though I've had no personal experience with them.
If a state actively caring for the health of its citizens is a socialist state, then I'm all for socialism.
@ Body Double- don't think it has so much to do with a political ideology so much as it has to do with diet and a way of life. Up North they don't load up on biscuits (made with shortening) & gravy, fatback, and fried eggs (stack of pancakes smothered in butter on the side is optional, but usually present) every single morning. Sure folks up North have their fattening equivalents, but by in large the South's got anyone beat when it come to gut-busting, fried comfort foods eaten on a daily basis regardless of political affiliation.
Nice attempt at making it us vs them.
Not sure if BodyDouble is 100% right. However, if your line of reasoning were correct, then why isn't Colorado and Utah on the list? After all, they have the lowest obesity rates in the entire country. They eat healthy and spend a lot of time doing physical activity.
How do you explain Chris Christi, Barney Frank , Charles Rangel, and others. Beside that how in the hell do you know what I eat for breakfast anyway.
I agree with Dr. Rational. I've worked in the acute care hospital system for 25 years..and not just one. These stats a skewed and have zero reflection on the reality of any healthcare system. I should know, I run the reports. I could say more, but I'll just let folks bask in the "unreality" of what's really going on "behind the curtain" of the healthcare systems and what is really causing healthcare costs to rise and what's quality really is and isn't.
BEST CARE ANY WHERE..... MAYO Clinic, Rochester,MN!
Especially from the students doing the hands on training,
Agree with Dr. Rational. They take limited public data and try to it add up to something it isn't
Safest hospital in the country is the one you never have to go to.
I would like to see a list of the 10 worst hospitals in the country and have Obama pay a visit next month when they get a fresh crop of new doctors fresh out of Med School.
Agree with the point that the best hospital is one you never have to go to.
I was in the hospital for 4 days this past January. Knee replacement surgery. Docs and entire staff were wonderful. Even the food was good and the housekeeping staff brought me my daily newspaper every day. That said, I have absolutely no desire to ever go back.
Yep, thanks to various agencies and organizations, hospitals are spending lots of time and money making sure that the reported statistics look good. One way to eliminate reportable CLABSI? Just don't do the culture. If it wasn't shown on a culture, it didn't happen.
I've worked in several states and in several types of hospital, and I have to say that the most dangerous is the teaching hospital; followed by the small community. Those are the two that are likely to cause or allow harm due to errors in judgement and failure to follow-up quickly on complications or deterioration. (Surprised that the teaching hospitals are included? Famous house staff response: "We'll discuss it in rounds" -- in 6 or 12 hours...) The best, and safest, hospitals that I've worked in are larger community hospitals where the MDs and nurses really function collaboratively, and the nurses are expected to know a lot more, and be able to act on that knowledge, than is typical at the teaching hospital where it is all about the learning experience of the residents.
In Alaska before admitting to a hospital they ask if you have insurance, if the answers is no, you got a room in the basement and may just die there unattended.
You mean Alaska doesn't have Medicaid? Emergency Medicaid is available to every indigent and emergency treatment is required to be provided without insurance. so if Alaska refuses emergency medical care or refuses Medicaid, then a violation of federal rights to care may well be present, you might want to contact an attorney in Alaska for advice,
Baloney John. EMTALA requires that all patients be seen and stabilized regardless of ability to pay. Every hospital asks if you have insurance so they know who to BILL, but it's illegal to ignore patients without insurance. Perhaps you're one of the many who believe their particular problem is the most important one in the emergency room?
John is right.It's the same way in Texas. If they find out you don't have insurance they scatter. Tell you when you are able to walk you need to leave the hospital. Probably get better care at a veterinary if you don't have insurance.I know,had a car wreck 2 weeks before my insurance at work kicked in.Left me in the emergency room for an hour after they found out i had no insurance.Guess the screaming from my fractured vertabrae bothered them enough to finally see about an x-ray.3 hours later i finally talked a doctor passing by to put some staples in my head to hold my scalp back together. Texas Regional Hospital at Sunnyvale,Texas. A hell hole of uncaring and inept people. Would have been nice to have a doctor that spoke english also.
I happen to Live in MA, and to have been hospitalized more than I care to think about for the last year plus. Reading the other comments, I see some that (I guess) have merit when considering where hospitals Really are better, worse, etc. Definitely, I agree that factors External to hospitals are worth considering, such as diet (having lived in the South, which I happen to love overall.... biscuits n' gravy, grits....smothered, covered, etc.?!....not so much))...but I digress. Back to my Point - Experience! My experience of area hospitals has been, overall, very good, sometimes, more like excellent.
I got very ill on a trip and ended up spending 7 days in the hospital in Millinocket, ME. Wonderful caring people there. I received top notch care and one of the doctors even offered to pick up a pizza I wanted to order from outside. (their hospital food was mostly good, but not pizza good.) LOL
They wanted to keep me longer but I really wanted to go home. They were worried about me driving home and one nurse offered to drive me to Portland to catch a flight after her shift. Really, who does that? I couldn't leave my Kenworth just sitting in Maine, so eventually they decided to allow me to leave.
My insurance picked up a lot of the cost but not all. I called them to discuss a payment plan and in the process I told them how wonderful the people were and how impressed I was with the excellent care. They knocked over $300.00 off of my bill...all because I expressed my gratitude.
They sure made a rough time a lot better. As ill as I was I have nothing but fond memories of the fine staff and doctors at Millinocket Hospital.
there should be one rule, safety first, no matter where you are, the local hospitals have a much better record of killing people, than they do of keeping them alive.
The safest hospitals are where the majority of the employees are Americans: whose primary language is E N G L I S H...look out when you have foreigners...because having worked at the International Student Office--they forge their documents to come to the USA and never leave--that includes what they claim they are qualified to do...
I'd love to see where Sunrise Hospital in Vegas ranks?
People need to realize that hospitals have a dual role of helping people achieve better health and also teaching others .
Slaughter houses that teach others . Becareful what you sign .
You signed it , so you agreed reguardless if you were lied to.
And the ratings are entirely dependent on the ultimate veracity of the self reporting party. Every hospital, like every city, has a vested interest in producing a low incidence rate, so some cities, like Chino Hills CA simply refuse to permit crime reports to lower the incidence of crime and improve property values.
There is not such a thing as a safe hospital in the US!
This study does not have enough information. In the summary provided by MSNBC, only 10 states are rated, and we don't really know what they are rated on. This is not very useful, and seems to be pretty poor reporting.
To the person who wrote that none of the California nurses would notice if you were dead or not:
Sad, but true. They are mostly from the Philipines and too busy having a potluck in the back to attend to you.
PMS-NBC has lied and distorted so many reports - I doubt this is the full story... If MS-NBC would setup an innocent person (Zimmerman) and then purposely and falsely report a Romney event (for their own purposes) how can we trust any of this??? Even Andrea Mitchell continued the lies!!!
I think PMS-NBC is fabricating news....
hey where' s new york state hospital, we didn't make the list
As has been mentioned by several other readers, this is a collection of self-reported data, with poor or no case definitions, and is sponsored by the insurance industry. There are probably 20 different hospital rating systems, and none of them will truly and accurately measure the quality of your particular hospital. It is important, however, to ignore the anecdotal "poor" or "bad" care comments.
Hmmm...Massachusetts and health...Why does that ring a bell? Oh, that's right, they have "Romneycare", whose creator is desperately trying to both embrace it and distance himself from it at the same time. But I guess, like the creator keeps saying, "Romneycare" doesn't transition to a national level easily. So let's just scuttle all of "Obamacare", because only people in Massachusetts deserve to be healthy.
Though I despise Romney I would have to agree with him as far as moving RomneyCare nationally.
MA had a high percentage of insured to start, non-profit local insurers and until recently non-profit providers. With all of that it barely works in MA. There are waits for care and administrative costs are high. As having health insurance doesn't necessarily mean you can actually access health care people with chronic illnesses still have difficulty paying for care. RomneyCare also left the flawed but currently necessary, employer based system intact. In 2018 ObamaCare's "Cadillac tax" goes off ending employer provided healthcare , especially in higher cost of living states, dumping everyone into the individual market at the mercy of the health insurance industry.
I just don't think this thing can be moved nationally without creating a massively expensive mess that doesn't meet the objective of providing healthcare to Americans.