Note: This story has been updated to include comments Tenet provided on Dec. 12, more than two weeks after it was first contacted and two days after the story was published.
Five of Palm Beach County’s largest medical centers — all owned by Tenet Healthcare — received F and D grades from a national nonprofit that rates hospitals across the country for patient safety.
Good Samaritan, Palm Beach Gardens and Delray medical centers received F grades in the fall biannual rating released Nov. 15 by The Leapfrog Group, which uses federal medical reports to rank roughly 3,000 hospitals nationwide.
Two other Tenet hospitals, St. Mary’s and West Boca medical centers, received D grades from the group that assesses injuries, infections, and medical and medication errors to spur hospitals to take steps to reduce preventable inpatient deaths.
Jupiter Medical Center was the only hospital in the county to get an A grade. It is the third consecutive time and the fifth since 2020 that the nonprofit hospital was awarded a top score.
Other hospitals rounding out the list:
- JFK Hospital and JFK Hospital North, owned by HCA, received C grades, as did Boca Raton Regional and Bethesda West, which are owned by Baptist Health. Wellington Regional Hospital, owned by Universal Health Services, also got a C.
- Bethesda Hospital East, also owned by Baptist Health, and Palms West, another HCA hospital, received B grades.
- The group doesn’t rate government-run hospitals, like the Riviera Beach VA Medical Center and Lakeside Medical Center in Belle Glade, or children’s hospitals.
Preventable medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections in hospitals kill roughly 200,000 people a year, making it the third leading cause of death in the country, said Alex Campione, program analyst for Leapfrog.
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“It is critical to monitor safety before choosing a hospital,” he said.
A 2019 analysis by Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality for Leapfrog found that D and F hospitals carry nearly twice the risk of death as A hospitals.
“Over 50,000 lives could be saved if all hospitals performed at the level of A graded hospitals,” researchers said.
In a statement, Tenet insisted the grades “aren’t accurate or reflective of our hospitals’ safety environment.”
Andrew Lofholm, a spokesperson for Tenet’s five county hospitals, which operate as the Palm Beach Health Network, said the grades were particularly unfair because the company didn’t participate in a survey Leapfrog distributes as part of the review process.
The surveys, however, “are just one piece of the puzzle,” Campione said. The grades are based on information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, he said. “These facilities are also performing poorly in data that is collected and publicly reported,” he said.
The voluntary surveys allow hospitals to offer Leapfrog additional information about efforts to reduce inpatient falls, infections and surgical errors and to detail policies, such as hand-washing and staffing levels, designed to protect patients.
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The Tenet health network has completed the surveys in the past and its hospitals got mostly C grades. Lofholm said it didn’t participate in Leapfrog’s recent survey “given it is not a regulatory or credentialing agency.”
“The Palm Beach Health Network’s top priority is providing high quality patient care,” Lofholm said in the statement. “ We take our responsibility to provide the safest possible environment for our patients very seriously, and we are continually implementing improvement initiatives.”
The Tenet health network’s hospitals were among 20% nationwide and the only ones in the county that didn’t complete the survey.
Not surprisingly, Jupiter Medical Center, lauded the results.
“This national designation affirms to our community that the care provided by Jupiter Medical Center is the safest possible in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast,” Dr. Amit Rastogi, hospital president and CEO, said in a statement.
Pamela Rada, a spokesperson for Wellington Regional, said the hospital was “disappointed” by its C grade, which it has gotten consistently since 2021 after receiving B and A grades, respectively, in the fall and spring of 2020.
But, she added, the score doesn’t “accurately reflect the high quality of healthcare provided to our patients.”
“The scores are based on historical data, some of which date back a few years,” Rada said in a statement. “We have action plans in place that utilize real-time data for continuous quality improvement efforts. These plans include implementing best practices and committee recommendations, along with ongoing employee and medical staff education.”
Louis Lochte, a spokesperson for HCA, said its three hospitals in the county take patient safety seriously.
“We recognize the importance of measuring quality and safety in patient care and are working hard to improve in certain areas,” he said in an email. “Our physicians, nurses and colleagues are dedicated to providing exceptional care for our patients.
Click here to read the report.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
