Kindred Hospital Clear Lake Earns ScionHealth’s ‘Platinum Award’ ‒ Company’s Top Honor for Hospital Quality

Staff from Kindred Hospital Clear Lake gathered May 5, 2025 to celebrate the Webster, Texas, specialty hospital earning the Overall Platinum Award from ScionHealth National Quality Strategy Awards.

WEBSTER, Texas (May 5, 2025) – Kindred Hospital Clear Lake was honored on May 5 as one of four ScionHealth-owned hospitals to earn the “Platinum Award” - the top recognition attainable within the company’s National Quality Strategy. The award was based on performance metrics from 2024.

ScionHealth leaders presented the award at a ceremony at the Webster specialty hospital, which is one of 85 ScionHealth-owned hospitals on campuses across 28 states. ScionHealth launched its National Quality Strategy in 2023, with Kindred Hospital Clear Lake also earning the Platinum Award in the program’s initial year.

Kindred Hospital Clear Lake is a 110-bed, long-term acute care hospital that specializes in treating medically complex patients recovering from serious injury or illness, including many who come straight from the ICU of a traditional hospital.

“The Kindred Hospital Clear Lake team is honored to once again be recognized as a top-performing hospital in terms of clinical quality at ScionHealth, our parent company,” said Angel Gradney, Market CEO of ScionHealth’s Houston-area specialty hospitals, which includes Kindred Clear Lake. “This is a rigid quality program among a family of 85 exceptional and competitive hospitals across the country, and for Clear Lake to again earn top marks speaks volumes for our facility and the amazing caregivers who put our patients and safety first in everything they do.”

The ScionHealth National Quality Strategy promotes best practices and measures the success of its hospitals’ quality performance over a 12-month period. The rigorous program enables and empowers hospitals to continuously improve patient care, safety, and satisfaction with an underlying goal of zero patient harm. Platinum Award recipients Kindred Hospital Clear Lake, Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center (Hartsville, South Carolina), Kindred Hospital Paramount (California), and Watertown (Wisconsin) Regional Medical Center outperformed all other ScionHealth hospitals while achieving exceptional quality performance.

The ScionHealth National Quality Strategy measures hospital quality over the six domains of healthcare quality established by the Institute of Medicine. Each domain features a mix of clinical metrics and best practices that include clinical protocols, training, and leadership. The more a hospital succeeds in each category, the more likely it will achieve better results in terms of patient safety, outcomes, and experiences. Here is a brief overview of each domain, including the key specialty hospital metrics that are scored:

• Effective – The hospital provides evidence-based care to all who could benefit, and refrains from providing services to those not likely to benefit, avoiding both underuse and misuse. Key ScionHealth metrics: successful discharge to home or community; mortality rate; improvement in ventilator patient mobility; ventilator liberation rate; sepsis measures; and more.
• Efficient – Through strong teamwork and open communication, the hospital reduces waste and allows time and resources to be optimized toward effective patient care. Key ScionHealth metrics: length-of-stay measures; antibiotic stewardship efforts; lower return to acute care rates; and more.
• Equitable – The hospital’s patients should have the opportunity to achieve their highest health potential, regardless of socially determined circumstances. Key ScionHealth metrics: initiatives and progress in addressing healthcare disparities.
• Patient-Centered – The hospital’s patients are its top priority. The hospital cares for their physical comfort and emotional well-being and respects patient and family preferences and values. By involving patients and families in care-plan development, the hospital improves healing and recovery. Key ScionHealth metrics: HCAHPS patient survey results (administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), effective implementation of foundational behaviors, bedside shift reports, rounding best practices, and more.
• Safe – By approaching patient safety initiatives holistically and systemically, the hospital strives to make safe care ordinary and routine. Key ScionHealth metrics: assessment of areas of harm reduction such as preventing/reducing falls, central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and C. difficile (a colon infection); improvement in safety event reporting, and related safety training.
• Timely – Timeliness of care is a crucial aspect of improving patient outcomes. By accurately assessing and appropriately addressing the urgency of care, the hospital strives to reduce harmful delays and minimize waste. Key ScionHealth metrics: meeting medical consultation timeframe expectations; and timely wound care assessments, primary care nurse skin assessments, and imaging, among other things.

“The ScionHealth National Quality Strategy challenges each hospital and each team member to ingrain quality and safety in everything they do,” said Dr. Dean French, Chief Medical Officer at ScionHealth. “The program is specific, measurable, and adaptive – the continuous improvement and best practice-sharing it encourages from within our family of hospitals positively impacts the entire organization. We were thrilled to experience the year-over-year improvement achieved by Kindred Hospital Clear Lake and so many of our hospitals, and excited to see how the progress we’ve made on our quality journey continues to elevate patient care.”

About Kindred Hospital Clear Lake

Kindred Hospital Clear Lake is a 110-bed, long-term acute care hospital with a focus on post-intensive care disorders. Conveniently located just off of I-45 South across from Clear Lake Regional Medical Center in Webster, Texas, the hospital has the capacity for 24 intensive care beds and 86 telemetry-level beds. Kindred Hospital Clear Lake is accredited by The Joint Commission in Sepsis and Respiratory Failure. The specialty hospital, part of the ScionHealth network of hospitals, is jointly owned with physicians. Learn more about the hospital here.