among the best<\/a>: as high as 10th out of more than 100 peer institutions. <\/p>\n![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IBEXRCPL6FBY7N5J4LCEAI4RPU.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
FILE – Aerial view of OHSU campus, Aug. 12, 2015.<\/p>\n
Provided by Aaron Bieleck \/ Oregon Health & Science University<\/p>\n
But in 2023, that changed. OHSU\u2019s rank fell to 56th. In 2024, it fell to 95th out of 115 academic medical centers ranked that year. <\/p>\n
According to slides Edwards presented to the board, OHSU\u2019s safety score has declined due metrics on bed sores, surgical site infections, collapsed lungs caused by medical procedures, and infections acquired in the hospital, among other issues. <\/p>\n
Mortality \u2014 the number of observed patient deaths versus the number expected \u2014 was the other major contributing factor to OHSU slipping in Vizient\u2019s ranks. <\/p>\n
Edwards shared several caveats with the board as to why she believes OHSU is performing better than its ranking indicates, particularly on the mortality score. <\/p>\n
For example, some patient deaths may have been counted differently by Vizient due to the closure of a hospice program. That could account for up to a third of the change in OHSU\u2019s mortality grade, she said. And an internal review of the mortality data suggested that some OHSU patients\u2019 medical charts weren\u2019t accurately capturing how sick or complex they were. <\/p>\n
Edwards presented to the board again this January. OHSU\u2019s Vizient rank had improved, to 73, but was still well below its historic performance.<\/p>\n
Penalized for preventable injuries, infections<\/p>\n
OHSU has also been penalized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the past three years because of preventable harm to patients.<\/p>\n
The federal agency scores hospitals on measures of preventable harm and it tracks five different major infections patients can pick up during a hospital stay, like antibiotic-resistant staph infections and the intestinal bacteria c-difficile.<\/p>\n
The hospitals in the bottom 25% nationally on those measures of patient harm are penalized with a 1% reduction in the payments they get for patients on Medicare. OHSU has been penalized for its performance for the past three years, at approximately $1 million annually.<\/p>\n
In response to questions from OPB, OHSU spokesperson Sara Hottman said that CMS halted patient safety reporting during the pandemic. OHSU only learned that its performance had declined relative to other hospitals nationally after that reporting resumed.<\/p>\n
According to Hottman, the penalties reflect OHSU\u2019s past performance. The data the federal government uses to calculate penalties can lag by 18 to 36 months.<\/p>\n
But in a March 12 town hall for OHSU staff, Elnahal shared a frank assessment of OHSU\u2019s current performance. <\/p>\n
The president of OHSU showed the hospital\u2019s most recent data on bed sores, patient falls that led to injury, and preventable infections in the hospital like c-difficile. Month to month, he told staff, OHSU was exceeding its targets. <\/p>\n
He said OHSU would be rolling out a new set of best practices to reduce infections over the next five months, with a goal of 90% compliance by July. <\/p>\n
At the same time the hospital\u2019s safety metrics were slipping, front-line staff in the emergency department have been flagging their own set of patient safety concerns. <\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s gotten worse\u2019<\/p>\n
As OHSU has grown in recent years, expanding profitable services like complex surgeries and cancer care, its small emergency department has become overcrowded. <\/p>\n
OHSU is among the state\u2019s largest hospitals but has one of the smaller emergency departments, with just 32 beds. <\/p>\n
Emergency room nurses say they feel like their department has been forgotten. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been screaming about this for years,\u201d says Tony Kyle, a charge nurse in the emergency department. Kyle says his colleagues have written many incident reports documenting near misses and issues with patient safety in the department. But he doesn\u2019t think those reports have changed anything. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gotten worse,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
As a charge nurse, Kyle is responsible for managing the flow of patients in the ED. He says OHSU\u2019s ability to discharge patients \u2014 critical to freeing up beds for people who come in through the emergency department \u2014 hasn\u2019t kept pace with the push to treat more people with highly complex conditions.<\/p>\n
Often, when his morning shift starts, the beds in the emergency room are fully occupied by \u201cboarders,\u201d patients who have been admitted to the hospital, and are waiting for a bed on another floor to open up before they can move out of the emergency department. <\/p>\n
According to Kyle, it\u2019s not uncommon for the only empty beds to be the four beds in the trauma bay, a special part of the emergency department used to triage and stabilize patients with life-threatening conditions as quickly as possible. <\/p>\n
Data provided by OHSU broadly corroborates the nurses\u2019 description of the boarding crisis. On average, there were 27 daily boarders in OHSU\u2019s emergency department last year. So far this year, that number is 28. That means nearly all of the emergency room beds are full, forcing nurses and doctors to provide care in the hallways and lobby. <\/p>\n
![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ZPQY3ZRP2BHADD5ZUY6L5AIRUY.JPG\")
<\/p>\n
FILE – An ambulance pulls into the entrance driveway for OHSU’s emergency department on Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021.<\/p>\n
Provided by Christine Torres Hicks\/OHSU<\/p>\n
Kyle said 11 stretchers have become permanent fixtures in the hallways of the emergency department. <\/p>\n
Hallway beds have limitations. They\u2019re a non-starter for elderly patients who cannot go to the bathroom on their own. Kyle tries not to put cancer patients or people recovering from organ transplants in the hallway, but sometimes has no choice. <\/p>\n
Kyle said that when even the hallway beds are full, nurses are forced to place IVs and even give blood transfusions in the emergency room lobby. Sometimes, Kyle said, a patient receives treatment in the lobby and gets discharged without ever making it into the actual hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not able to care for our patients in a manner that\u2019s safe,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
At Friday\u2019s board meeting, emergency department nurse Tori Roberts said she personally had submitted more than 100 reports in the past year related to the boarding crisis. <\/p>\n
According to Roberts, the patients who face delays in getting an appropriate placement in the main hospital are often ones who are elderly, don\u2019t speak English, or are what Roberts described as \u201cmentally altered.\u201d They end up boarding in the emergency department for hours or days at a time. <\/p>\n
\u2018An extremely disturbing situation\u2019<\/p>\n
Elnahal said he agrees with nurses about the intensity of the problems they\u2019re facing. He said no patient should be treated in the lobby, and that he\u2019d spoken with his team this week about immediate ways to find more beds for the boarders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an extremely disturbing situation,\u201d he said. \u201cI say that as the leader of this institution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elnahal noted that this month, the hospital opened a new tower dedicated to advanced cancer care, the Vista Pavilion. To date, that expansion has netted OHSU 30 new inpatient beds, but by the end of the year, that number will grow to more than 100 new beds. <\/p>\n
That, he said, should help move some patients out of the emergency department more quickly. A plan to expand the Emergency Department itself is underway and will be complete in about three years. <\/p>\n
During the staff town hall in March, Elnahal said OHSU has excellent caregivers providing \u201ccare that nobody else can, in so many different ways,\u201d and that he didn\u2019t believe in disciplining those caregivers over the hospital\u2019s declining metrics. He said the hospital needs better tools to prevent harm to patients. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something I strongly believe that you can\u2019t really discipline people over, but rather it is something that we have to work together on to achieve better results,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cPreventable harm is not something that OHSU should rank highly in,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just not something we\u2019re going to accept.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bird flies overhead as OHSU’s Marquam Hill Campus, where the OHSU and Doernbecher Emergency Room is, sits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253,264839],"class_list":["post-609547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ohsu-oregon-health-science-university-hospital-health-care-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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