LAS VEGAS (FOX5) -
Consumer Reports has released its safety ratings for Nevada hospitals.
Scoring is based on six criteria: Avoiding infections (worth 20 points), avoiding readmissions (20 points), communication about medications and discharge (20 points), appropriate use of chest and abdominal scanning (20 points), avoiding serious complications (10 points) and avoiding mortality (10 points).
Nevada's top score goes to Southern Hills Hospital with 55 points, followed by Desert Springs, 53 points; and St. Rose Siena, 49 points.
The bottom three Nevada hospitals: Summerlin Hospital, 37 points; St. Rose de Lima, 33 points; St. Rose San Martin, 24 points.
"Southern Hills Hospital is extremely honored to receive the highest score in Nevada," said spokesperson Joyce Goedeke in a statement to FOX5. "As with all our Sunrise Health System hospitals, we are diligent in carefully tracking our patient safety and hospital performance, ensuring that we use preventive measures to mitigate safety issues and we report our outcomes to help our patients and their families choose Southern Hills as their healthcare provider."
St. Rose Hospitals seems to question the data Consumer Reports used in the study.
"Numerous publications periodically report healthcare quality results, and some of these reporting organizations use valid data while others rely on sources that are subjective," the company stated in a press release. "Patient care and safety are always our highest priorities at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals. Our hospitals are committed to ensuring access to safe, quality patient care and continually demonstrate this commitment to improving and enhancing patient safety by adopting best practice guidelines recommended by national health care quality organizations such as the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission."
The scores were surprising to several residents of Las Vegas and Henderson, many holding the same opinion on what the problem might be.
"When you don't have enough people you just don't have enough care," said one visitor at St. Rose de Lima.
"They are so understaffed," said a visitor at Desert Springs Hospital. "Two nurses have the whole floor, they can't do what they need to do."
Only 15 of Nevada's 38 hospitals were rated because of a lack of available data.
Consumer Reports estimates less than 25 percent of U.S. hospitals have a safety score because data used for the study is not reported consistently nationwide.
The highest score in the country was a 72, given to the Billings Clinic in Montana.
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