Three San Joaquin Valley hospitals – one in Fresno, one in Modesto and one in Bakersfield – received the lowest scores among 20 hospitals in the region in annual ratings issued this month by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Downtown Fresno’s 685-bed Community Regional Medical Center, the 394-bed Doctors Medical Center in Modesto and Bakersfield’s 253-bed Adventist Health Bakersfield each got one-star ratings for overall hospital quality from the federal agency also known as CMS.

They were among 31 hospitals across California and 229 nationwide named in the lowest tier of CMS’ five-star rating system for overall hospital quality.

No Valley hospitals received the top-level five-star rating. But five medical centers earned four stars, the second-highest tier:

• Fresno VA Medical Center, 116 beds.
• Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Fresno, 169 beds.
• Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Manteca, 99 beds.
• St. Joseph Medical Center, Stockton, 355 beds.
• Sutter Tracy Community Hospital, 77 beds.

Three-star hospitals in the CMS ratings are:

• Adventist Health Lodi Memorial.
• Dameron Hospital in Stockton.
• Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia.
• Mercy Hospital, Bakersfield.

Two-star hospitals are:

• Adventist Health Hanford.
• Bakersfield Memorial Hospital.
• Clovis Community Medical Center.
• Doctors Hospital of Manteca.
• Emanuel Medical Center in Turlock.
• Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield.
• Memorial Medical Center in Modesto.
• Mercy Medical Center in Merced.
• Saint Agnes Medical Center in Fresno.
• Sierra View Medical Center, Porterville.

The star ratings are based on an analysis of 45 hospital quality measures in five broad
categories including mortality, safety of care, readmission rates, patient experience, and
timely and effective care. The quality measures were calculated by CMS using data
from 2022 or 2023.

• Mortality considers hospital death rates for heart attack patients, coronary artery
  bypass graft surgery patients, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients,
  heart failure patients, pneumonia patients, stroke patients and patients with
  serious treatable complications after surgery.
• Safety of care considers various types of infections and complications.
• Readmission rates examine hospital return days for patients of heart attacks,
  coronary artery bypass surgery, heart failure, hip or knee surgery, overall
  readmission following discharge from a hospital, and unplanned hospital visits or
  emergency department visits following certain outpatient procedures.
• The patient-experience component of the rating considers the percentage of
  patients who reported that their doctors or nurses communicated well with them,
  received help as soon as they wanted, received explanations from hospital staff
  about medications before they were administered, that their hospital rooms were
  clean and quiet, and other factors.
• Timely and effective care was evaluated based on the percentage of healthcare
  workers covered by influenza and COVID-19 vaccinations, patients who left the
  emergency room before being seen, patients in the emergency department with
  stroke symptoms who received brain scan results within 45 minutes of arrival,
  and more.

More than a dozen other Valley hospitals registered with Medicare were not rated because of insufficient information in the quality measures.

The complete data tables for the CMS ratings are available online.

Federal Ratings Differ From US News & World Report List

The CMS ratings released in August follow unrelated rankings by U.S. News & World Report of “best regional hospitals” in the country. Community Regional and Saint Agnes Medical Center, both in Fresno, and Memorial Medical Center in Modesto were named among 64 hospitals in California and 504 hospitals nationwide on the U.S. News list.

The U.S. News Best Regional Hospitals list is based on a different methodology than the CMS star ratings, evaluating a hospital’s performance and deeming them “high-performing” or better than average based on their performance and outcomes in at least nine procedures or conditions including care for cancer, diabetes, neurology, heart arrhythmia, heart attack, heart failure, stroke and more.

About the Author

Tim Sheehan is the Health Reporting Fellow and a senior reporter with the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. The fellowship is supported by a grant from the Fresno State Institute for Media and Public Trust. Contact Sheehan at tim@cvlocaljournalism.org.