New Surgical Safety Rankings Rate Rhode Island Hospitals

New Surgical Safety Rankings Rate Rhode Island Hospitals

Consumer Reports released this week its first-ever surgery rates for over 2,400 hospitals across the country.

In Rhode Island, Miriam Hospital took top honors with a safety score of 62 out of 100, followed by Landmark Medical Center with a rating of 61, and Memorial Hospital with a score of 56.

In total, Consumer Reports gave numerical safety ratings to seven hospitals in the state, while the remaining seven were not yet rated, although most received assessments in several of the sub-categories listed.

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Hospitals were ranked on: bloodstream infections that ICU patients contracted while they had catheters in place; avoiding readmissions within 30 days of being discharged; drug information made available to patients; and "surgery adverse events", which are based on mortality or staying in the hospital longer than expected.

To develop the ratings, Consumer Reports worked with MPA, a health care consulting firm with expertise in analyzing medical claims and clinical records. The project uses billing claims that hospitals submitted to Medicare for patients 65 and older, from 2009 through 2011.

The publication, which has been conducting rankings since 1936, touts itself as an "expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers, and to empower consumers to protect themselves."

Kent Hospital Offers Perspective

Dr. Michael Dacey, Kent County Hospital's Chief Medical Officer and Critical Care Specialist, offered his perspective on the rankings -- and what Kent Hospital is doing to makes is surgical procedures even safer.

"These types of rankings are a useful things for consumers, and are widely available" said Dacey. "Hospital Care is probably the best site available."

"Consumers should note that this type of data is usually 6 to 9 months old, as it has to be extracted from records," he continued. "When hospitals have electronic medical records firmly in place, there will be less of a lag time for information for patients."

Speaking with GoLocal, Dacey touched upon several new protocol measures Kent Hospital has put into place to make surgical procedures as safe as possible.
"We recently put in place procedure that moves the responsibility of administering antibiotics from the surgeon to the anesthesiologist," said Dacey. "This allows the surgeon to focus more on the logistics of the surgery, and puts the process in a better place to makes the the antibiotics are administered in time."

"We've also put new measures in place that make is so that a trained nurse can now remove a catheter without a doctor," Dacey said. "The longer catheters stay in, the greater risk for infection."

In addition, Dacey mentioned new technological advances being made at the hospital in the way of new operating rooms opening in the next couple of weeks.

"We'll now have electronically integrated ORs," said Dacey. "Surgeons won't have to bring X-rays with them, they'll be able to link directly to the radiology department. The surgeon will be able to review scans right there, lab values...they will be the most sophisticated ORs in the state."

Going to back to the study, Dacey said that he sees the advances in protocol and technology as benefiting patients in short order.

"The data that we see from the study -- we want to do the best we can for patients," said Dacey. "Once the data catches up with the changes we've made, we expect our performance grade to be much higher."

Keeping Track of Rhode Island Data

Dara Chadwick with the Rhode Island Department of Health pointed to two resources available for consumers through the state's websites.

The link to the statute related to hospital event reporting can be found here: and the link to HEALTHS's Hospital Quality page can be found here.