As a Houston, Texas medical malpractice attorney, I handle cases throughout the State of Texas, including hospitals located in Grapevine, which is largely within Tarrant County, Texas.
Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Grapevine is located at 1650 W College St., Grapevine, Texas 76051. This 302-bed hospital offers medical services for heart and vascular, women and children (including birthing, labor, and delivery services), neurosciences (including neurosurgery), stroke, orthopedics, spine, diagnostic imaging, intensive care (ICU), neonatal intensive care (NICU), and emergency care (ER). It has a Level II trauma Center designation and, since 2010, has been a certified primary stroke center.
Quality of care concerns
In late 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the list of hospitals that would be penalized in 2017-2018 as a result of the federal Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program. This oversight program began in 2014, and has the goal of providing financial incentives to hospitals to improve care.
Each year, the program considers several metrics, including infection rates from certain procedures, infection rates of certain bacteria, and hospital-acquired injury rates.
Medicare/Medicaid reviews reporting data for all accredited hospitals and then penalizes those hospitals whose performance ranks in the bottom 25% for the selected factors. Hospitals included in this list are penalized by a 1% reimbursement reduction by Medicare.
For both 2017-2018, and 2016-2017, the care provided by Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Grapevine earned it a spot in the list of hospitals penalized by Medicare.
The two consecutive years of penalties are not the first time that Medicare and Medicaid identified quality of care concerns involving Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Grapevine.
In a separate oversight program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services send surveyors to conduct on-site inspections and record reviews of accredited facilities. When these surveyors identify quality of care concerns, it may result in the issuance of a violation.
On September 12, 2013, the surveyor issued two violations to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Grapevine.
The first violation was for the hospital’s failure to provide care in a safe setting. The surveyor found that a patient acquired a pressure ulcer within 48 hours of admission and treatment orders were not received until nine days later. The surveyor noted a second case in which a patient acquired a pressure ulcer to his lower back and skin damage in his groin within four days of hospitalization.
The second violation found in the hospital failed to provide adequate registered nursing supervision of nursing care, based on the same pressure ulcer issues.
As a former hospital administrator, I know that hospitals, like Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Grapevine, must have policies and procedures in place to guide the nursing staff on how to monitor, prevent, and treat pressure ulcers. Medical research has shown that these types of injuries can develop surprisingly quick in patients who are immobilized, including elderly or post-surgical patients. For these reasons, the standard of care requires physicians to enter orders to protect skin integrity. In addition, the standard of care requires nurses to monitor patients closely for changes in skin status, protect and pad bony prominences, and turn patients at regular intervals (usually every two hours). When a pressure wound or bedsore develops, physicians and nurses must give immediate attention, adopting interventions including specialized mattresses to relieve pressure, application of moisture barriers, and ensuring that the patient receives adequate nutrition to allow healing to occur.
We are here to help
If you or someone you care for has been seriously injured because of medical malpractice at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Grapevine, call the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at Painter Law Firm, in Houston, Texas, at 281-580-8800, for a free consultation about your potential case.
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Robert Painter is an attorney at Painter Law Firm PLLC, in Houston, Texas. He is a former hospital administrator who files medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuits against hospitals, doctors, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and other healthcare providers on behalf of patients and family members. He frequently speaks and writes on topics related to healthcare and medical malpractice. He previously served as editor-in-chief of The Houston Lawyer magazine, and currently serves on the editorial board of the Texas Bar Journal.
