Novant Health NHRMC speaks out after receiving average grades
WILMINGTON (WWAY) — A Wilmington hospital is speaking out on newly released ratings from several healthcare watchdogs and a protest calling for even more improvements planned for this upcoming weekend.
“Part of our 2030 strategic plan is to be Leapfrog A and 5 star and then maintain that.”
Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center President, Laurie Whalin, spoke about their rating from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services increasing from two stars to three. The star ratings are based on a variety of factors, including timely care, maternal health, and communication between staff and patients.
“Both from our physician communication, which has improved from a 33rd to an 71st percentile, and our nursing communication improved from a 29th to an 82nd percentile.”
Despite the three-star CMS rating, another organization called Leapfrog gave the hospital a C-Grade for the fourth straight reporting period.
Both watchdogs measure hospitals against one another in their region, and against the national average. NHRMC was ranked average by both.
Chief clinical officer for Novant Health’s coastal region, Dr. Heather Davis, says there are plenty of improvements despite these grades.
“From our hospital acquired infections, there are infections that are captured. We have had significant improvement in 4 out of 5 of those.”
But an average grade is not good enough for Five Star Project founder Jon Martell, who created the organization after a bad experience he had at NHRMC while being treated for a severe medical emergency. His organization has previously protested against the hospital, calling out issues like the lack of available rooms and unclean conditions.
“Five years have gone by. It’s still a 2-star hospital. It still gets a C rating for patient safety grade and there is no concrete evidence that they are getting any better,” said Martell. “They tell us every year. They tell us we got it under control, it’s going to get better, just wait, the next report’s going to be better. You know what, it doesn’t happen.”
Five Star Project will hold a protest outside the hospital on Saturday, May 16th, calling for better transparency from Novant.
Whalin says the issue is being addressed following the launch of a new online dashboard earlier this year that shows the improvements in several areas from 2024 to 2025, like the hospital cleanliness rating.
“We’ll share that with our entire community. We welcome to follow along on our journey. We welcome to be a part of this,” said Whalin. “We want to share real-time metrics that show that that data is in the past and our real-time metrics show the performance of our teams, our hospital and the care we provide today.”
Whalin says she believes the hospital is on its way to getting a 5-star rating soon, anticipating that 2026 would be their big step forward.
CMS grades for many regional hospitals were also released.
Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center received a 4-star rating, while Columbus Regional Healthcare System was given just 1-star.
