Hospital Safety Rankings: See How Austin Area Hospitals Were Graded

By BRENDAN KRISEL (Patch Staff)

About 36 percent of hospitals in the the Austin area received top marks for safety on the new Hospital Safety Scorecard from the Leapfrog Group.

Of the 11 Austin hospitals rated on the scorecard, four earned an A grade, four earned a B and three earned a C.

That’s pretty consistent with the rest of Texas, which is a good thing. The state was ranked 13th for hospital safety with 67 of 203 hospitals in the scorecard earning an A.

The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of patient safety experts and administered by The Leapfrog Group, a national, independent nonprofit. Hospital Safety Scores are assigned by Leapfrog to more than 2,500 hospitals across the nation twice annually.

The Hospital Safety Score grades hospitals on how safe they keep their patients from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. It is peer-reviewed in the Journal of Patient Safety, is free to the public and is to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.

It uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single A, B, C, D, or F score.

• Process Measures represent how often a hospital gives patients recommended treatment for a given medical condition or procedure. For example, “Use antibiotics right before surgery” measures how often a hospital gives patients an antibiotic within one hour before surgery.
• Structural Measures represent the environment in which patients receive care. For example, “Doctors order medications through a computer” represents whether a hospital uses a special computerized system to prevent medication errors.
• Outcome Measures represent what happens to a patient while receiving care. For example, “Dangerous object left in patient’s body” measures how many times a patient undergoing surgery had a dangerous foreign object, like a sponge or tool, left in his or her body.

Here are the scores listed for hospitals near Austin in Travis and Williamson Counties.

• Seton Medical Center Williamson: B
• Scott & White Medical Center: B
• St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center: A
• St. David’s North Austin Medical Center: A
• St. David’s Medical Center (Downtown Austin): A
• Seton Northwest Austin: C
• University Medical Center Brackenridge: C
• Seton Medical Center Austin: C
• St. David’s South Austin Medical Center: B
• Cedar Park Regional Medical Center: B
• St. David’s Georgetown Hospital: A

To view the details, visit www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.