It's not the flu that has us feeling under the weather. It's the revelation that area hospitals have not been doing an adequate job of protecting patients from mistakes. Beaufort Memorial Hospital is among 13 S.C. hospitals being penalized by the federal government because of the number of hospital-acquired conditions that affected Medicare patients between 2011 and 2013. The score card is part of the government's toughest effort yet to crack down on infections and make sure that patient safety is a top priority for the nation's medical facilities. Based on the rate of Medicare patient complications, U.S. hospitals received overall scores of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst.
