Watsonville Hospital Gets 'C' In Safety Rankings

WATSONVILLE, CA — Watsonville Community Hospital has received a "C" safety grade, according to new spring 2020 ratings released by the Leapfrog Group this week.

Dan Brothman, CEO and chairman of California-based Halsen Healthcare, noted that Halsen bought Watsonville Community Hospital in October. The data included in Leapfrog's rankings mostly reflected the time that the hospital was owned by Tennessee-based Quorum Health, which has since filed for bankruptcy, he said.

Halsen has since tried to institute improvements and pay more attention to patient satisfaction, Brothman said. Now decisions are made locally, under the direction of a local board, he said.

Brothman said, "It's a much better team approach."

"Our focus is the community and I think that helps."

Safety grades are released by nonprofit organization Leapfrog Group twice per year, in the spring and the fall. The ratings of more than 2,600 hospitals focus on accidents, injuries and infections, and help to assess how well a facility prevents medical errors and other harm to patients.

It’s worth noting the metrics used to determine this spring’s hospital grades originated from safety data reported for periods ending in 2018 and 2019. The report does not take into account the strain the new coronavirus outbreak is placing on some hospitals where staff are experiencing shortages of drugs and protection equipment.

Leapfrog found Watsonville Community Hospital had below-average scores when it came to infection rates and hand washing.

Brothman said the hospital focuses on infection prevention education, hand hygeine and catheter care.

"It was important to us before COVID and it really becomes more important right now," he said.

When it comes to the patient experience, Brothman said he and the chief nursing officer spend a lot of time on the floor interacting with patients to put their needs first. Staff pay close attention to patient satisfaction scores and seek to be responsive, he said.

Watsonville Community Hospital is also updating its clunky computer program that doctors and nurses use to order prescriptions, Brothman said. The new program will be up and running by July 2020.

The latest grades show 33 percent of hospitals nationwide earned an “A” grade while 25 percent earned a “B.” Some 35 percent earned a “C” grade, 7 percent a “D” and less than 1 percent received an “F” grade.

See how Watsonville Community Hospital stacked up to other hospitals here.

Here's how nearby hospitals ranked:

• Dominican Hospital, Santa Cruz: A
• El Camino Hospital Los Gatos: C
• Good Samaritan Hospital of San Jose: B

To determine each state’s grade, Leapfrog used up to 28 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and information from other supplemental data sources. When averaged, performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

The goal of the Hospital Safety Grade is to reduce deaths caused by hospital errors and injuries.

Leapfrog estimates that if the risk at all hospitals was equivalent to what it is at "A" hospitals, 50,000 lives at other facilities would have been saved. Overall, the researchers estimate that 160,000 lives are lost every year due to avoidable medical errors. That figure is down from 2016, when the Leapfrog Group estimated there were 205,000 avoidable deaths.

For a full description of the methodology, go here.