Woodlands Area Hospitals Receive Good Rating

THE WOODLANDS -- A national consumer research group has posted the 2016 grades on hospital safety, and hospitals in The Woodlands scored pretty well, while others in the Houston area have some room for improvement.

The annual evaluations were conducted by the Leapfrog Group, which compiles information from hospitals throughout the U.S. and provides safety breakdowns in various categories including patient injuries, accidents and infections, which kill over 200,000 Americans each year, making these errors the third leading cause of death in the U.S.

The Leapfrog Group today announced its Fall 2016 release of the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a program which assigns A, B, C, D and F letter grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals bi-annually and is the gold standard measure of patient safety in the United States. Of the 2,633 hospitals evaluated, 844 earned an “A,” 658 earned a “B,” 954 earned a “C,” 157 earned a “D” and 20 earned an “F.”

Nearly 37 percent of hospitals in Texas received an A, with the remaining 73 percent receiving a B or lower rating.

Leapfrog evaluated 212 hospitals in Texas, with 30 of those in Houston and surrounding communities.

Of those 30 hospitals, about one-third of those scored an A for patient safety in 2016.

Spring’s Methodist Willowbrook continued its streak of excellence scoring A’s for the fourth year in a row, one of only three in Houston to achieve that distinction.

Other campuses, St. Luke’s Lakeside, Memorial Hermann in The Woodlands, and Houston Methodist all received A’s.
Some of those hospitals saw their grades split for the spring and fall.

Memorial Hermann at the Texas Medical Center scored an A for spring 2016, and a B for the fall, as did Houston Northwest Medical Center.

Overall, most hospitals either showed consistent improvement, or maintained excellence, according to the survey results.

While roughly 17 of those scored in the A or B range, area hospitals consistently scored a C.

Tomball Regional Medical Center scored a solid C for the third year in a row, and better than the D the hospital earned in 2013.

North Cypress Medical Center scored a C in the fall, which was down from a B the campus earned in the spring.

St. Luke's in Vintage received average and below average marks with a C in the fall, up from the D the campus earned in the spring.

The worst overall grade went to University General Hospital which received C’s this year, which was up from failing marks in 2014 and 2015.

According to Leapfrog President and CEO Leah Binder, “In the fast-changing health care landscape, patients should be aware that hospitals are not all equally competent at protecting them from injuries and infections. We believe everyone has the right to know which hospitals are the safest and encourage community members to call on their local hospitals to change, and on their elected officials to spur them to action. States that put a priority on safety have shown remarkable improvements.”

For more information about the Safety Grade, as well as individual hospital grades and state rankings, please visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.

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