Leapfrog’s Safest North Texas Hospitals

Methodist and Medical City are top performers on Leapfrog’s Hospital Safety Grades in North Texas. The two systems avoided any C’s in the latest evaluation of hospitals that measured hospitals’ ability to avoid errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.

Methodist Health System’s four hospitals all received an A, while Medical City Healthcare’s DFW hospitals received eight A’s and three B’s. Baylor Scott & White Health received five C’s, four B’s, and three A’s, while Texas Health Resources ended up with eight C’s, three A’s, and one B. Not every hospital in the area was part of the report, including specialty hospitals and hospitals without enough data.

“These superior safety ratings reflect our patient promise across the Medical City Healthcare system of hospitals to providing excellence always in every action, every patient, every time,” says Erol Akdamar, president of Medical City Healthcare, via release. “Patient safety is one of many reasons our facilities are the destination of choice for healthcare excellence in North Texas.”

“Receiving straight A’s for the second time in a row is a huge accomplishment for Methodist,” says Pam Stoyanoff, President and Chief Operating Officer, Methodist Health System, via release. “Achieving this standard of patient safety is one thing, but maintaining it is what makes me the proudest. Our commitment to excellent outcomes just never wavers.”

Parkland Health and Hospital System was the region’s only D, while John Peter Smith received a C. UTSW’s Clements University Hospital, which is Dallas’ best hospital according to U.S. News World Report, received an A, while UTSW’s Zale Lipshy Pavilion received a C.

Statewide, Texas dropped from being ninth in the nation in the spring rankings, and is now 16th in the nation for hospital safety. About 38 percent of Texas hospitals received an A, down from 41 percent earlier this year. DFW faired better than the state, with around 42 percent of hospitals receiving an A. Maine was the top state, with 58 percent of hospitals receiving an A, and Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota all tied for last with no hospitals receiving an A.

Leapfrog hopes that potential patients will be more mindful when choosing a hospital, which is why they make a consumer-friendly grading system for general, acute care facilities around the nation. As many as 440,000 people die every year from hospital errors, injuries, accidents and infections, and one of every 25 patients develops an infection while in the hospital. One in four Medicare patients experience injury, harm, or death when admitted to a hospital, and every day, 1,000 people die due to a preventable hospital error.

Two times a year, the organization evaluates over 2,600 hospitals using  national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and other data sources. The safety grades evaluate 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data in two categories: process and structural measures and outcome measures.

See the DFW area hospitals and their rankings below, and see the complete grades, methodology, and more information here.