Category: Hospital Errors

Hospitals are where people usually go to address immediate medical emergencies. People involved in car crashes or who suspect that they just had a cardiac event head straight to the hospital. Many primary care physicians have admitting privileges at local hospitals and may send their patients for more intensive support when circumstances warrant aggressive interventions.

Staying in a hospital can lead to a better outcome for someone battling a major illness, recovering from an injury or in need of intensive support because of medical challenges. Unfortunately, not all hospitals provide the same standard of care.

According to a private analysis of hospitals across Rhode Island, some of them provide much better medical care than others. People intending to undergo surgery or facing inpatient care at the hospital may want to check on whether their hospital receives a competitive grade when compared with modern best practices.

Rhode Island has relatively safe hospitals

In many states, there are multiple hospitals that do not receive passing grades according to Leapfrog, a private organization that evaluates medical data about individual facilities to assign a letter grade to different hospitals.

Overall, no hospitals evaluated in Rhode Island received D grades or lower. The worst local hospitals received C grades based on reports from early 2025. This indicates that their services are simply average, and that there may be reason for concern for patients.

The Rhode Island hospitals with a C grade include Roger Williams Medical Center, Our Lady of Fatima Hospital and Kent Hospital. Individual reports about these hospitals identify post-surgical complications and hospital-borne infections as leading issues that resulted in lower scores.

South County Hospital received a B grade and was the only state hospital in that category. Multiple hospitals received an A, including Rhode Island Hospital, The Miriam Hospital, Landmark Medical Center, Newport Hospital and Westerly Hospital.

Even a hospital that currently has an A or B grade might only be one or two egregious errors away from a much worse score. Patients may want to select hospitals that have a reputation for better cleanliness and favorable surgical outcomes. They may also want to evaluate the score of a hospital where they or a loved one received seemingly substandard medical treatment recently.

Pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit can compensate those harmed by poor care standards, preventable medical mistakes and hospital-borne infections. Not every hospital in Rhode Island provides ideal care standards for patients, but the patients affected by mediocre medical care still have rights.

Like in many other industries, Rhode Island’s healthcare sector is short of workers. Many hospitals and clinics are looking for nurses, aides and other key employees. If they have not hired enough people, they may force their staff to work long shifts and take overtime. Shifts themselves might be shorthanded, with doctors and nurses responsible for many more patients than they were just a few years ago.

All of this means that the next time you or a loved one goes to the hospital, you might not get the standard of care that you deserve. Severe shortages in nurses and other healthcare professionals are straining many facilities to the breaking point, putting patients in danger of becoming victims of medical malpractice.

Not enough nurses to cover the ICU

The standard for American ICUs is to have one nurse on duty per two patients. But if there are not enough nurses to keep up this ratio, there might be three or four patients per nurse for some shifts. This may not sound that bad, but it is considered to be a highly unsafe situation for patients sick or injured enough to require an ICU stay. The less time and attention a nurse has for each patient under their care, the more likely they are to make a potentially disastrous mistake. This is true no matter how well-meaning or experienced the nurse might be. Nurses who are exhausted or burned out from overwork are also more prone to errors.

Hospitals owe their patients a legal duty to provide a certain level of care. Falling below that level because they are short-staffed is the hospital’s fault. Nobody should lose a loved one or suffer unnecessary health problems because of errors or neglect caused by a lack of doctors or nurses on duty.

While U.S. hospitals continue to focus on the health of their patients, they sometimes overlook their nutritional needs. This may or may not come as a surprise, but malnutrition is a widespread problem among hospital patients, making them a higher mortality risk. So says a collaborative study from 2019 by nutritionDay and Abbott.

According to the study, roughly one-third of hospital patients are at risk for malnutrition. Such a fact places these patients at a higher risk for death compared with other patients. Researchers came up with their findings after reviewing information on 10,000 patients in 245 U.S. hospitals from 2009 to 2015.

Higher mortality rate when not eating

Among the study’s findings include:

• A total of 51% of patients eat only half or less than half of their served meals.
• Adult patients who failed to eat any of their food were six times more likely to die than patients who ate some food.
• Of the patients allowed to eat but did not, just 11% received nutritional supplements from hospital staff.
• Certain categories of patients were more at risk for malnutrition. The list includes almost half of long-term care and infectious disease patients as well as 40% of oncology patients.

What can hospitals do? Granted, many hospital patients may not have an appetite while admitted. But hospitals may offer more desirable and appetizing meals; better assist patients who have impairments and limited mobility; offer alternate food and nutrition choices; consult with registered dieticians regarding patients who have limited appetites; and provide supplements such as nutrition drinks for patients who have problems with solid food.

Patient advocacy

A hospital is a place where patients get better. However, if they are not receiving the right care – and that includes nutrition – they face an uphill battle for survival. This is another reason why patients and their families must advocate to improve nutrition within the confines of a hospital.