Health & Fitness

Here Are The Safest Hospitals In Texas

Nonprofit group Leapfrog has released its hospital safety grades. See how your local hospital fared.

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AUSTIN, TX — A new analysis assessing thousands of hospitals across the country for patient safety found that more than four of every ten facilities analyzed received a grade of "C" or worse.

The Leapfrog Group analysis released Tuesday is the most current of the biannual hospital safety grades it assigns the studied hospitals across various safety metrics. The assessment system assigns school-style letter grades to general acute-care hospitals as a patients' guide to avert further injury or infection in visiting hospitals.

The organization evaluated roughly 2,500 hospitals. Of those, 30 percent earned an "A" and 28 percent earned a "B" when it comes to preventing medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections, which collectively are the third leading cause of death in America. A "C" grade was given to 35 percent of hospitals, 6 percent earned a "D" and 1 percent earned an "F."

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Despite the unforgiving nature of the letter grades, the study's authors conveyed optimism in tracking continual improvement in the ratings: "The national numbers on death and harm in hospitals have alarmed us for decades," Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a prepared statement. "What we see in the new round of Safety Grades are signs of many hospitals making significant improvements in their patient safety record,"

No Texas hospital listed garnered the dreaded "F" grade, but there were about a dozen Ds and quite a number of Cs. Click here to find your hospital's grade.

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Overall, Leapfrog said its analysis showed 89 hospitals that had previously received "D" or "F" ratings had improved to an "A" this year.
Rhode Island, Hawaii, Wisconsin and Idaho all previously ranked near the bottom of the state rankings with low percentages of "A" hospitals, but now all rank in the top 10. Among other key findings in the study:

  • The five states with the highest percentage of "A" hospitals this spring are Hawaii, Idaho, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Virginia
  • Ten states have hospitals with "F" grades are California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey and New York

Leapfrog says you shouldn't refuse emergency care because of a bad safety grade. They're meant to be used strictly as a barometer for planned hospitalizations and as a research tool for potential emergencies.

Just under 200 Texas hospitals figured in the reckoning, several of them securing the coveted grade of "A," according to the analysis. Texas hospitals scoring the highest letter grade were:

>>> Photo credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

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