South County and Westerly Hospitals receive “A” grades for patient safety

Roger Williams and Rhode Island Hospitals get the lowest marks in the state

By Will Collette

Leapfrog Group

For the past ten years, the Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog group, has been surveying and ranking general hospitals across the US for safety. They released their Fall 2022 Hospital Safety Grades on November 16.

It was not surprising that South County Hospital, the state’s only independent hospital continued to show its leadership among the state’s hospitals.

More of a surprise is Westerly Hospital’s rise in the rankings. It wasn’t that long ago that that Westerly Hospital nearly had to close. Its financial troubles were reflected in low ratings. But since being bought by Yale-New Haven Hospital, their quality of care and rankings have greatly improved. Up until this rating period, Westerly was a solid “C” so congratulations to them.

There are lots of rating services for hospitals, nursing homes and doctors, including Medicare’s; the Leapfrog survey is one that carries some weight.

Their website is chock full of details information to help you evaluate their ratings and see that specific areas of concern as well as those areas where, for example, our "A" rated hospitals excel.

For example, here's just a portion of the detail in the South County Hospital report. Notice how they compare South County's score to the best, worst and average hospital's score.

Measure	The Hospital's Score	Worst Performing Hospital	Avg. Performing Hospital	Best Performing Hospital	Data Source	Time Period Covered
Dangerous object left in patient’s body What's This?	0.000	0.373	0.02	0.000	CMS	07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019
Air or gas bubble in the blood What's This?	0.000	0.642	.0016	0.000	CMS	07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019
Patient falls and injuries What's This?	0.251	2.014	0.41	0.000	CMS	07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019
Infection in the blood What's This?	0.877	4.970	1.11	0.000	2022 Leapfrog Hospital Survey	01/01/2021 – 12/31/2021
Infection in the urinary tract What's This?	1.522	3.517	0.90	0.000	2022 Leapfrog Hospital Survey	01/01/2021 – 12/31/2021
Surgical site infection after colon surgery What's This?	0.000	2.941	0.80	0.000	2022 Leapfrog Hospital Survey	01/01/2021 – 12/31/2021
MRSA Infection What's This?	0.490	4.287	1.13	0.000	2022 Leapfrog Hospital Survey	01/01/2021 – 12/31/2021
C. diff. Infection What's This?	0.065	1.844	0.49	0.000	2022 Leapfrog Hospital Survey	01/01/2021 – 12/31/2021
Death from treatable serious complications What's This?	Not Available	206.37	159.68	95.65	CMS	07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019