Hospital grades and rankings: How North Florida Regional Medical Center, UF Health scored
Hospital scores and rankings, including those for North Florida Regional Medical Center and UF Health Shands Hospital, were recently announced by two highly watched organizations.
Healthgrades
Healthgrades released its 2022 hospital ratings and specialty excellence awards in late October.
North Florida RMC was rated among the top 50 U.S. hospitals for surgical care across 15 of the most common in-hospital procedures, including cardiac, vascular, joint replacement, prostate, spine and gastrointestinal surgeries.
For the third consecutive year North Florida also was named among the 50 best hospitals for vascular surgery outcomes.
The hospital also was rated among the top 100 in joint replacement, orthopedic surgery and spine surgery.
This year’s rankings also mark the first time that North Florida has been ranked among the top 100 in gastrointestinal care and pulmonary care.
Leapfrog
In The Leapfrog Group’s fall 2021 safety grades released Wednesday, North Florida RMC was awarded an A. It is the hospital’s fifth consecutive A in the group’s biannual rankings.
“We are honored to receive this top award and rank from one of the most prominent patient safety organizations in the health care industry, five times in a row,” said North Florida CEO Eric Lawson in a news release. “The patient is at the center of our care here at NFRMC, and this A rating demonstrates that.”
The hospital received high marks for its ability to prevent infections following surgery, its ability to prevent problems during surgery and the ability to keep its patients safe.
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Healthgrades recognized UF Health with excellence awards in four specialties for 2022, including gastrointestinal care, gastrointestinal surgery, joint replacement and pulmonary care.
It was the hospital’s third straight award for pulmonary excellence and second in a row for gastrointestinal surgery.
Leapfrog gave UF Health a C in its fall 2021 safety grades, continuing a trend that dates back to fall 2018. UF Health has received a C grade in five of Leapfrog’s last six rankings. It received a B rating in fall 2020.
In the fall 2021 ratings UF Health received below average marks in infections and practices to prevent errors. It rated above average in its ability to keep patients safe.
UF Health CEO Ed Jimenez said that in order to receive the maximum number of points in the Leapfrog and Healthgrades rankings a hospital must subscribe to participate, which UF Health does not do.
“When Leapfrog or Healthgrades come out it’s a data point, but it’s not how we’re going to drive improvements in quality, Jimenez said, noting that the academic hospital primarily focuses on Vizient, CMS and US News & World Report for comparative benchmarks.
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He said it doesn’t make sense to compare university hospitals such as Shands, Duke and Northwestern to an average community hospital.
“That’s why we have all these different benchmarks and systems,” he said. “At the end of the day, we think measurement is important, we think every hospital should have some way that they collect their own data and have a comparison to similar institutions, and that puts everybody in a mode of trying to get better every day.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: NFRMC, UF Health receive hospital rankings, grades
