Both local hospitals – Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital and Orlando Health Sebastian River Hospital – held onto their “B” grades in LeapFrog’s Spring 2025 hospital safety ratings as did nearby alternative HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce.
HealthFirst’s Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, the closest level one trauma center to Vero, retained its “A” grade.
Cleveland Clinic Indian River officials have said publicly that they fully expected the B this time around, but that the hospital is on track to earn an A grade in 2026. The Sebastian River grade was based on scores reflecting the performance of its previous owner, Steward Health Care.
“Hospitals acquired by Orlando Health in October 2024 received grades based on data submitted to the Leapfrog Group by previous owners,” Orlando Health said. “Due to the lag in clinical outcomes data available to national hospital rating services such as The Leapfrog Group, safety grades and quality rankings for these hospitals will be impacted by the previous owner’s data until at least 2027.”
To prevent wild shifts up and down in scoring from season to season, LeapFrog smoothes out the grades by including up to two years of previous safety rating and patient survey metrics provided by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS.
But how did Vero’s only public hospital do on the one pesky item that has dogged Indian River hospital for years?
In the hand-washing category listed under preventing patient harm, Cleveland Clinic Indian River finally measured up to LeapFrog standards this spring – something the hospital’s Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Rothman vowed to get corrected when he took over on an interim basis at the start of 2024.
Cleveland Clinic Indian River also met LeapFrog’s standard for the staff working together to prevent errors, and made “considerable achievement” in the category of effective leadership to prevent errors.”
Rothman said his team’s “obsession over the safety and outcomes of our patients is leading to exceptional results.”
“Recently, we have achieved several notable milestones: ranked in the top 5 percent nationally for both prostate care and patient safety, and, recognized as one of the leading open-heart surgery programs with the lowest readmission rates in the country, ranking No. 24,” Rothman said.
“We look forward to continuing to build on these successes in our journey to be the best place to receive and deliver care anywhere,” Rothman added.
Two areas where Indian River was ranked lower were in providing adequate “informed consent” on the risks of procedures, and having a comprehensive policy with regard to dealing with what the healthcare industry calls “never events,” meaning medical errors that should, theoretically never happen.
“Hospitals should have a never events policy that includes all nine actions that should occur following a ‘never event,’ which includes apologizing to the patient and not charging for costs associated with the never event,” the LeapFrog rating site states.
According to LeapFrog, Cleveland Clinic only meets two of its nine criteria fully – it has a rapid-response team to deal with never events, and it has a mechanism for collecting and responding to patient concerns about care.
Another problem area for Indian River was no surprise considering patients’ frustration over “facilities fees” which appear on certain bills which include imaging and are rarely covered by insurance, as LeapFrog ranked the hospital as having limited achievement in the area of billing ethics. LeapFrog dinged the hospital for not providing a detailed bill within 30 days of receiving insurance payments, and for quickly investigating billing errors and establishing payment plans.
Orlando Health took over the Sebastian hospital on Oct. 29 so this was the first LeapFrog grade on the board for the company in Indian River County.
“Immediately after the acquisitions, Orlando Health began the process of assessments and implementation of focused improvements that will elevate care for our patients to the high standard maintained in facilities throughout the rest of the healthcare system,” Orlando Health said in a May 1 statement.
Prior to 2025, all the Orlando Health system’s long-standing hospitals had received “A” grades for several grading cycles. This time around, Orlando Regional Medical Center slipped to a “B.”
