Hospital Safety Grades: The Best — And Worst —In Tampa Bay

A nationwide hospital safety analysis has found that 11 hospitals in Tampa Bay received an “A” grade for preventing medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections, which collectively are the third leading cause of death in America. On the flip side, two hospitals received a “D”.

The Leapfrog Group released its bi-yearly hospital safety grades on Tuesday, finding that hospitals overall have improved in reducing the number of avoidable deaths. The group assessed roughly 2,500 hospitals. Of those, 30 percent earned an “A,” 28 percent earned a “B,” 35 percent a “C,” 6 percent a “D” and 1 percent an “F.”

“The national numbers on death and harm in hospitals have alarmed us for decades. What we see in the new round of Safety Grades are signs of many hospitals making significant improvements in their patient safety record,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a release.

The assessment system assigns school-style letter grades to general acute-care hospitals. The hope is to determine a patient’s risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital.

Here are the full list of hospital grades in Tampa Bay:

Grade A

1. St. Joseph's Hospital, Tampa
2. Florida Hospital Carrollwood, Tampa
3. Florida Hospital Tampa, Tampa
4. St. Joseph's Hospital North, Lutz
5. St. Joseph's Hospital South, Riverview
6. Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, Pasco County
7. Mease Dunedin Hospital, Dunedin
8. Morton Plant Hospital, Clearwater
9. Florida Hospital North Pinellas, Tarpon Springs
10. Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, Pasco County
11. Lakewood Ranch Medical Center, Bradenton
12. Doctors Hospital of Sarasota, Sarasota
13. Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Sarasota

Grade B

1. Brandon Regional Hospital, Brandon
2. Mease Countryside Hospital, Safety Harbor
3. South Bay Hospital, Sun City Center
4. St. Petersburg General Hospital, St. Pete
5. South Florida Baptist Hospital, Plant City
6. Largo Medical Center, Largo
7. Medical Center of Trinity, Pasco County
8. Morton Plant North Bay Hospital, New Port Richey
9. Lakeland Regional Medical Center, Lakeland

Grade C

1. Tampa General Hospital, Tampa
2. Tampa Community Hospital, Tampa
3. St. Anthony's Hospital, St. Pete
4. Northside Hospital, St. Pete
5. Palms of Pasadena Hospital, St. Pete
6. Manatee Memorial Hospital, Bradenton
7. Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, Hudson
8. Blake Medical Center, Bradenton
9. Bartow Regional Medical Center, Bartow

Grade D

1. Memorial Hospital of Tampa, Tampa
2. Bayfront Health St. Petersburg, St. Pete

Among the findings nationally, five hospitals that received an “A” grade for the first time this year previously received an “F” grade, the group said, and 46 hospitals earned an “A” for the first time since the grading system began six years ago.

Leapfrog said its analysis showed 89 hospitals that had previously received “D” or “F” ratings had improved to an “A” this year.

Rhode Island, Hawaii, Wisconsin and Idaho all previously ranked near the bottom of the state rankings with low percentages of “A” hospitals, but now all rank in the top 10.

Here are some of the other findings:

• The five states with the highest percentage of “A” hospitals this spring are Hawaii, Idaho, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Virginia
• The 10 states that have hospitals with “F” grades include: California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey and New York. The Florida hospitals were Larkin Community Hospital - Palm Springs campus in Hialeah and Sebastian River Medical Center in Sebastian.

Leapfrog says you shouldn’t refuse emergency care because of a bad safety grade. They’re meant to be used as a guide for planned events and a research tool for potential emergencies.

Patch reporters Dan Hampton and Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this report.

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