Pinellas hospitals receive high marks for safety

“At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse,” notes Dr. Samuel Shem in The House of God. For all of the dizzying advancement of the last two decades, medicine is first and foremost human – and in any field involving people, accidents happen.

The Leapfrog Group’s yearly Hospital Safety Grades are an effort to help the general public – and medical professionals – understand where those incidents occur and why. With 200,000 or more deaths each year resulting from preventable medical errors, judging the safety of critical medical institutions is literally a matter of life and death.

Every Tampa Bay hospital received a passing grade in Leapfrog’s new assessment, with just five out of 34 regional facilities (Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Manatee/Sarasota counties) receiving below a B. Here are the grades for Pinellas County hospitals:

AdventHealth North Pinellas: B (down from A in 2023)

AdventHealth received high marks for staff quality and practices to prevent errors. However, they were slightly below average marks on management of certain harmful events in-hospital, such as blood clots, and below average scores on the rate of post-surgical and secondary infections amongst patients.

Bayfront Health St. Petersburg: B (up from C in 2023) (renamed Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital on March 1, 2024).

Since its purchase by Orlando Health, St. Petersburg’s main downtown trauma center has seen its safety standing advance from a D grade in 2021. While communication issues – both internally and with patients – remain a challenge, scores improved across patient safety and care metrics. Surgical complications and post-surgical and secondary infections continued to be below average.

HCA Florida Largo Hospital: B (down from A in 2023)

HCA Largo received above average marks across infection, post-surgery, patient safety and error prevention metrics, but fell slightly below average on most communication and staffing metrics and declined to report statistics on hospital leadership or nursing and bedside care.

HCA Florida Northside Hospital: B (up from C in 2023)

HCA Northside received good marks across post-surgery and patient safety, but had a higher than average rate of healthcare-associated infections and issues around communication, both internally and with patients. HCA Northside declined to report statistics on hospital leadership or nursing and bedside care.

HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital: B (down from A in 2023)

HCA Pasadena did not report data around MRSA and blood infections, but did have issues around certain surgical site infections after colon surgeries. Patient safety and post-surgery marks were generally average or above average, but a higher than average number of falls resulted in broken hips and accidental cuts and tears. Communication metrics were related as below average. HCA Pasadena declined to report statistics on hospital leadership, nursing and bedside care.

HCA Florida St. Petersburg Hospital: C (down from A in 2023) (commonly known as St. Petersburg General Hospital)

HCA St. Petersburg was Pinellas’s only C-graded hospital, having dropped from A to B in Fall 2023 and B to C in Spring 2024. While post-surgery complications were average or above average, patient safety was below average in three areas: Falls, falls causing broken hip, and dangerous blood clots. Infections after colon surgeries, responsiveness and communication were also below average. HCA St. Petersburg declined to report statistics on hospital leadership or nursing and bedside care.

Mease Countryside Hospital: A

Mease Countryside Hospital was not rated below average in any of the measurable areas. It was above average across most patient safety, error prevention, staffing, and post-surgical metrics.

Mease Dunedin Hospital: A

Mease Dunedin was above average across all staffing and error prevention metrics, and was rated below average in only one patient safety metric, falls resulting in broken hips. Certain data around infections was not reported.

Morton Plant Hospital: A (formerly known as Morton Plant Mease)

Morton Plant Hospital retained its A grade and was above average on most staffing and all error prevention metrics. It received average or above average ratings across most other metrics, but was graded below average in urinary tract and post-colon surgery surgical site infections, as well as patient falls.

Morton Plant North Bay Hospital: A

Morton Plant North Bay was above average on most staffing and all error prevention metrics. It received average or above average ratings across most other metrics, but was graded below average in collapsed lung treatment and post-colon surgery surgical site infections, as well as accidental cuts amongst patients.

St. Anthony’s Hospital: A

St. Anthony’s retained its A grade into a fourth year. It was above average in most staff, patient safety, error prevention, and surgical metrics, though it was below average in patient falls. Below average ratings were reported in three of six metrics on infection (blood, urinary, and slightly below average post-surgical sepsis).