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Sunday, April 6, 2014

From the Mail Bag

Sun City Anthem Resident Shares Valley Hospital Ratings


As many of you know, we enjoy letters from our readers, and when a subject comes up we feel many of our senior residents may have benefit, we love to share it with you.

...and one of those topics... the subject of Hospital safety...

...is paramount in the lives of all of us as we get "trudge" though "being of a certain age".

We received a letter covering a fascinating study from a valued reader, Shep Rose, a former federal judge, whose friendship I've valued for years, along with that of his wife, Jenny. 

According to Shep....

Kim Wagner, on Channel 3 “Wake Up with the Wagners” indicated that the morning’s 4AM-7AM “Wake Up with the Wagners” would give the safety ratings of 15 Clark County hospitals.

...so he recorded it.

Kim Wagner had the Consumer Report hospital safety expert identify only two (out of fifteen) Clark County hospitals....

St.Rose (Sienna)

 and

 Centennial Hills

....as leading the list, with hospital safety ratings of 57 and 56 respectively.

 Highest hospital safety rating,nationwide...78..a hospital in Maine.

The TV segment did rank UMC  (University Medical Center,Las Vegas) the lowest...hospital safety ranking...30.

On the TV segment, Kim Wagner referred the listener to   WAKEUP@MYNEW3.com for “detailed information”, but his attempt to find any mention of Nevada Hospital Ratings by ConsumerReports.org was not successful.

However, since Sun City Anthem seniors are interested in “DETAILS” of hospital safety ratings, particularly ADVERSE EVENTS-SURGERY...a frequent topic of conversation here...

...as a subscriber to CONSUMERREPORTS.ORG, he had no difficulty in navigating the website to ...

HOSPITAL SAFETY RATINGS

States Shep, "On the map of the USA, place the mouse pointing arrow on “Nevada” then narrow the search to “CLARK COUNTY”

(Do not check off cities..Henderson..Las Vegas,etc.)"

The are 22 Clark County hospitals with ConsumerReports.org safety ratings.
INCIDENTALLY, in Nevada, two Reno hospitals score higher than any Clark County hospital!

There are more detailed hospital safety reports for each hospital in the nation, including those here.

There are four hospital safety areas studied.

These include..
.
 Bloodstream Infections

Avoiding Re-admission

Drug Information

...and...the topic of frequent conversations here:

Surgery--Adverse Events

Not many of the  22 Clark County hospitals did well in the study...and only one hospital got a "BEST" rating in one category !

"Best" is a red bull’eye.

 “Next Best” is circle half red and half white.

"Worst" is a black circle.

 For a hospital with a “best” or “next best” rating on SURGERY--ADVERSE EVENTS...Shep 's advise is simply...

...LEAVE TOWN !!

All 22 Clark County hospitals except St.Rose-Sienna... got a black circleWORST” for “DRUG INFORMATION” .

St.Rose-Sienna got a black half circleNext Worst”.

He wasn't sure what “Drug Information” covers ! 

However, for “Avoiding Re-admissions” two Clark County hospitals get a red half circle ("Next Best"); namely, St.Rose-Sienna and Boulder City Hospital, which is not yet rated on anything else.

Curiously, 2nd ranked Centennial Hills Hospital , in the category of “Avoiding Re-admissions”  gets a black half circle, along with Desert Springs Hospital, Spring Valley Hospital, Valley Hospital, Mountain View Hospital, and University Medical Center...
...while Sunrise Hospital gets a black circle...”WORST”.

 In the area of “Bloodstream Infections” 2nd ranked Centennial Hills Hospital gets a red bulls’ eye...”Best

...a red half circle (“Next Best”) goes to St.Rose de Lima, Desert Springs, St.Rose San Martin, Summerlin Hospital , and Sunrise Hospital.

There are also several Clark County hospitals not yet rated.

Veterans Affairs Southern Nevada, Health South, Mesa View, Progressive,Spring Mountain , as well as Boulder City Hospital, rated only in” Avoiding Re-Admissions”.

We. at Anthem Opinions, once again, thank Shep Rose for passing his findings on to us and we hope all of you found it as informative as we did.

Dick Arendt

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