Patients Give Valley Hospitals Poor Grades
The Brownsville Herald—July 12th, 2010
The Rio Grande Valley’s hospitals rank poorly in patient satisfaction surveys, below both the state and national averages, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Local hospitals ranked below the Texas average in all 10 categories measured by the department, according to a Monitor analysis of the data. Valley hospitals also ranked below the national average, which is lower than the Texas average, in nine of 10 categories.
To compile statistics for the Valley, The Monitor averaged data from 11 acute care hospitals across South Texas.
Edinburg Regional Medical Center scored the worst, with a 62 percent average across all 10 categories. Cornerstone Regional Hospital, also in Edinburg, scored the highest with 72 percent. Neither hospital responded to a request for comment. The U.S. average is nearly 69 percent.
The department asked recently discharged patients if their doctors and nurses always communicated well. It also inquired about the cleanliness of their rooms and whether they would recommend the hospitals to others. The survey, officially called the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, allows patients to make apples-to-apples comparisons of hospitals across the country.
Read More: The Brownsville Herald
