Is your South Florida hospital safe for patients? Check these rankings to find out

MORE: SEE HOW YOUR HOSPITAL RANKED WITH THESE CHARTS

Some Florida hospitals do such a good job with patient safety that they’ve propelled parts of the state into a nationwide Top 25 list.

But hospitals in the Miami-Fort-Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area have fallen short in patient safety, with more than half of the hospitals getting a “C” in preventing medical errors, accidents and infections.

That’s according to a new report released Wednesday by the Leapfrog Group, a national watchdog nonprofit that has analyzed hospital data for more than 20 years.

Leapfrog gives A-F grades to hospitals nationwide twice a year for patient safety. The organization uses more than 20 factors, including rates of preventable errors, injuries and infections to help patients pick the best hospital near them for care. Some of the collected data is voluntarily reported by hospitals to Leapfrog and other data is collected from other sources, such as from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Overall, Florida hospitals have a “very strong performance” in patient safety, according to Katie Stewart, Leapfrog’s director of health care ratings.

Here’s what to know about the grades and rankings:

What the Leapfrog patient safety hospital report shows

▪ LeapFrog said it grades nearly 3,000 hospitals in the country twice a year “on the very basics of medical care, such as hand-washing, entering prescriptions through a computer, and the availability of highly trained nurses.” While you can look at a hospital’s overall grade, you can also get a more detailed look at how your hospital ranked in categories including infections; problems with surgery; safety problems; practices to prevent errors; and how well doctors, nurses and hospital staff respond and communicate.

▪ Good news: Leapfrog said it noticed “significant signs of improvement” nationwide in patient experience and a “sustained drop” in preventable healthcare-associated infections after “unprecedented rates during the height of the pandemic.”

“Patient experience is very difficult to influence without delivering better care, so these findings are encouraging,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a statement. “We were also pleased to see the decrease in preventable infections, which cause terrible suffering and sometimes death. When we look at these positive trends, we see lives saved — and that is gratifying.”

▪ Five Florida metropolitan areas, including the Orlando and Tampa areas, made it into the Top 25 metro list for “A” hospitals in the country, a new feature of the nonprofit’s report. South Florida didn’t make the cut. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area ranked No. 69.

▪ Florida got kicked off the Top 10 list for patient safety and now sits at No. 12 in the watchdog group’s new spring 2024 report, even though 75 hospitals received an “A” grade, slightly more then in the previous fall 2023 report. Stewart said this is because hospitals in other states also saw improvements, enough to move their state’s rankings above Florida.

“In Florida, patients have many great choices on where they can receive care, but not all hospitals perform the same,” Stewart said. “Hospitals receiving an “A” Safety Grade are better at protecting their patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections, and have processes in place to prevent them.”

▪ LeapFrog recommends people consider how well a hospital scores in hand-washing, reducing blood infections and patient falls when picking a place to seek care. Of course, if you have an emergency, go to your nearest hospital for care.

Best and worst South Florida hospitals for patient safety?

Ten hospitals in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties scored an “A” in this new report, nearly double than in the fall rankings. Eight hospitals got a B, 26 got a C and six got a D. No hospitals were given an F grade.

The rankings don’t include specialty hospitals, including children’s hospitals such as Nicklaus near South Miami or Joe DiMaggio in Hollywood. It also doesn’t include surgical centers, critical access hospitals and veteran hospitals, including the Miami VA. LeapFrog said this could be because the hospitals aren’t required to publicly report their safety record to the federal government, the hospitals are too small or they lack the necessary data.

Here are the hospitals that scored an “A” grade:

▪ Baptist Health Doctors Hospital, 5000 University Dr, in Coral Gables, kept its A score.

▪ Broward Health North, 201 E Sample Rd., in Deerfield Beach went from a B to an A.

▪ Baptist Health Homestead Hospital, 975 Baptist Way, kept its A grade.

▪ HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, 11750 SW 40th St., went from a B to an A.

▪ Baptist Health West Kendall Baptist Hospital, 9555 SW 162nd Ave., went from a B to an A.

▪ Memorial Hospital Miramar, 1901 SW 172nd Ave., scored an A once again.

▪ HCA Florida Westside Hospital, 8201 W Broward Blvd. in Plantation, kept its A grade.

▪ Baptist Health South Miami Hospital, 6200 SW 73rd St., scored an A, better then in the previous report, when it got a B.

▪ Larkin Community Hospital South Miami, 7031 SW 62nd Ave., kept its A grade.

▪ Jupiter Medical Center, 210 S Old Dixie Hwy. in Palm Beach County, kept its A grade.

Response from Memorial Healthcare System:

Dr. Ari Sareli, the chief medical officer for Memorial Healthcare System, told the Miami Herald in an emailed statement that while Leapfrog’s safety scores are valuable, it is not a real-time snapshot of the hospital’s current situation. He says some of Leapfrog’s “pivotal” data points stem as far back as July 2020, when hospitals were feeling the strain of COVID-19 and no COVID vaccines existed. Memorial is “dedicated to enhancing patient safety practices” and expects to see better grades in the future once more updated data becomes available, he said.

Response from HCA Florida:

HCA Florida, which owns a variety of hospitals across the state and saw more than half of its facilities get a grade of B or higher, said it remains “committed to clinical excellence in all areas of our hospital, including patient safety” and noted that its hospitals have received recognition from other organizations such as Healthgrades for patient safety. The health system also criticized Leapfrog, saying that it no longer voluntarily provides data to the nonprofit because it “continues to move away from evidence-based metrics and we believe outcomes are the best measure of quality.”

Here are the hospitals that scored a “D” grade:

▪ Mount Sinai Medical Center, 4300 Alton Rd. in Miami Beach, saw its score go from a C to a D.

▪ West Boca Medical Center, 21644 State Rd. 7 in Palm Beach County saw its score go from a C to a D.

▪ Delray Medical Center, 5352 Linton Blvd., in Palm Beach County saw its score go from a C to a D.

▪ Florida Medical Center, 5000 W Oakland Park Blvd in Lauderdale Lakes kept its D score.

▪ North Shore Medical Center, 1100 NW 95th St. in North Miami-Dade, kept its D score.

▪ HCA Florida JFK Hospital, 5301 S Congress Ave. in Atlantis in Palm Beach County, kept its D score.

Response from Mount Sinai Medical Center:

Mount Sinai Medical Center, in an emailed statement to the Miami Herald, said it is “constantly striving to deliver true clinical excellence, and a patient-centric approach to care.” Mount Sinai said it does not voluntarily provide information to Leapfrog. The hospital also disputed its “D” grade, noting that it’s been on Healthgrades Best Hospitals list for five consecutive years and is also in U.S. News & World Report’s Top 10 list for hospitals in Florida .

What about Miami-Dade and Broward’s public hospitals?

▪ Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Jackson North, Jackson West in Doral and Jackson South all scored a C, just like in the previous report.

▪ Memorial Hospital Miramar kept its A. Memorial Hospital Pembroke Pines was bumped down from a B to a C. Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Memorial Regional Hospital South and Memorial Hospital West kept their C grades.

▪ Broward Health North’s grade went from a B to an A. Broward Health Coral Springs kept its B grade. Broward Health Medical Center was bumped down from a B to a C. Broward Health Imperial Point kept its C grade.

Check your South Florida hospital’s patient safety grade

Go to hospitalsafetygrade.org/ or use the chart to see how your South Florida hospital scored in Leapfrog’s new report.

Best Florida metro areas for patient safety

Leapfrog also made a Top 25 list of metro areas with the most “A” hospitals. This is the first time the watchdog group has ranked metropolitan areas that have at least six graded hospitals and a population of at least 500,000 by the percentage of “A” grades received by hospitals in the area.

How Florida fared:

▪ The Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area ranked No. 9.

▪ The Jacksonville area tied at No. 13 with the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton area and the Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pennsylvania metro area.

▪ The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area secured the No. 16 slot.

▪ The Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach metro area tied at No. 19 with three other metro areas — Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colorado; Grand Rapids-Kentwood, Michigan; Hartford-East Hartford-Middletown, Connecticut.

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metro area didn’t make the cut. It ranked at No. 69. getting an “A” grade. The Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton Pennsylvania-New Jersey metro area came out at No. 1.

Check your Florida hospital

To search for another hospital or to read the report for your hospital, visit hospitalsafetygrade.org/