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Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
For such a physically-beautiful facility, how can The Villages Regional Hospital have such abysmally low ratings?
The Medicare “search for healthcare” tool shows TVRH rated at one-star (out of five) both by Medicare as well as a survey of recent patients. It’s the only hospital within 40 miles rated this low. Leesburg Regional Hospital isn’t much better, rated at two stars by Medicare and only one-star by patients.
The closest hospital with decent ratings is Advent Waterman Hospital in Tavares, rated at four-stars by Medicare and three-stars by patients.
To get top-rated hospitals we have to go to Shands in Gainesville or several in central Florida, but none closer than 50 miles away. We should probably take this into consideration when selecting our specialist doctors. Where do they have admitting priveledges and where do they perform procedures or surgeries? More importantly, are the better-rated hospitals and the doctors who practice there covered by your health insurance plan?
How long will it take for UF Health to improve care at our local hospitals? Or will we have to wait a decade until the new hospital is built and opened in the southern end of The Villages? In that all three hospitals will be owned by UF Health, we can guess how much emphasis will be placed on improving what will then be two older hospitals.
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I can’t use the hospital or medical services here at The Villages because they use some proprietary insurance thing and don’t accept Blue Cross/Blue Shield. AdventHealth/Waterman in Tavares is rated #3 in the Orlando Area and #28 in the state, and that’s a mile above the hospital here. It’s 35 minutes from my house. AdventHealth/Waterman is tied to AdventHealth/Orlando, however, and U.S. News and World Report says that is the #1 hospital in Florida. However, it is also gigantic, while Waterman is new and cozy.
Here are the criteria used for the ratings: “ To help patients decide where to receive care, U.S. News generates hospital rankings by evaluating data on nearly 5,000 hospitals in 16 adult medical specialties, 10 adult procedures or conditions and 10 pediatric specialties. To be nationally ranked in a specialty, a hospital must excel in caring for the sickest, most medically complex patients. In most specialties, the top 50 hospitals are nationally ranked and additional hospitals may be recognized as high performing. Hospitals that do well in multiple areas of adult care may be ranked in their state and metro area. The ratings in procedures and conditions focus on typical Medicare patients and eligibility is based on the number of patients treated. See details for the quality measures that factored into each evaluation.”
If you go to AdventHealth doctors at The Villages, they can steer you to AdventHealth/Waterman if needed or get you into AdventHealth/Orlando if you have an especially difficult case.
One thing I want to make clear: the rating of the hospital is not based on the nursing care, or at least only partly, as when administration won’t hire enough nurses. In my experience, even hospitals with low rankings may have many really wonderful nurses and other staff, and the hospitals may be clean and modern and attractive. Hospitals that don’t treat thousands of the sickest or poorest patients, aren’t regional trauma centers, and don’t have a legion of interns and residents using patients as learning tools tend to have lower ratings. Yet most patients don’t need those things, and they may make a hospital more dangerous. Many excellent surgeons actually don’t want to work at a “teaching hospital” because the teaching takes a lot of time that could be used making more money. Few doctors get rich these days, so I can’t blame them for wanting more patients and not wanting to live in a big city.