PROVIDENCE − As he went about his work on Friday, a “young” as yet unnamed engineer working on the reconstruction of the Route 195 Washington Bridge noticed something unusual in the steel holding up the span.
He called over a supervisor and three days later on Monday afternoon the highway used by 90,000 drivers to cross the Seekonk River each day was suddenly closed, gridlocking the Providence metro area and severing the key connection between the east and west halves of the state.
Common Cause Rhode Island Executive Director John Marion Jr. spent four hours and 32 minutes trying to get from Tiverton to a state Ethics Commission meeting in Providence. He didn’t make the meeting.
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“It’s chaos,” Marion tweeted. “People are cutting though every street in EP desperately trying to find a way to a Henderson [Bridge] approach. The main thoroughfares are parking lots … More than 1.5 hours and moved about 200 feet.”
With weeks of traffic jams and travel delays on the horizon, Rhode Island leaders Tuesday scrambled to explain what happened and minimize the disruption as much as possible.
Gov. Dan McKee called it “an event that cannot be avoided and cannot be predicted.”
State Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti Jr. said “we averted a major catastrophe here.”
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Morning commutes of a half hour or 45 minutes ballooned into two-hour, four-hour or even five-hour ordeals. The side streets in East Providence and parts of Providence’s East Side flooded with cars.
East Providence schools dismissed students early. School sports in some East Bay schools were canceled and La Salle Academy considered allowing East Bay students to attend class remotely.
After a lull in midday, traffic seized up again as the sun went down and the evening commute began. On traffic cameras, drivers were seen leaving their cars.
To restore the road connection between Providence and East Providence, the DOT is planning to build a temporary bypass that will allow two lanes of westbound Route 195 traffic to use two lanes of the eastbound span.
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Alviti said he expects to open that temporary crossing within two weeks and is working to do it even sooner.
The repairs needed to reopen the westbound span are expected to take three months.
“It’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of operation that we’re in right now,” Alviti said.
Severed rods from beams
The problem first spotted by the man Alviti called a “young engineer” is the failure of several foot-and-a-half long steel rods that anchor the span to its cantilever support beams.
The westbound span, which was built in 1968, was last inspected in July and at that time Alviti said there were no signs of damage to the eight rods that have now severed from the beams.
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“If one pin goes, it can have a compounding effect on the other rods and that is what happened in this case,” Alviti said, adding that in addition to the pins there were “other deficiencies” to the structure occurring in a “cascading way.”
Asked why, if there was a threat of collapse, the DOT didn’t close the bridge Friday when the problems were first spotted, Alviti said “there’s a sequence of analysis that has to take place before you make the decision to close a bridge to 90,000 people a day who use it.”
A team of DOT engineers and outside consultants worked “night and day” through the weekend to write a full report on the condition of the bridge with the recommendation to close it, he said.
To make sure East Bay residents in need of medical care can get to Rhode Island Hospital, the DOT is creating a single emergency-only lane guarded by police on the strongest part of the westbound span that ambulances use.
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Alviti said while individual ambulances should not pose a safety risk, buses or fire trucks are too heavy and will not be allowed on this emergency lane.
Since the closure, many Rhode Islanders have wondered why the state can’t build a quick temporary span like the one that opened 12 days after a bridge collapsed on Route 95 in Philadelphia.
Alviti said because that bridge collapsed over another roads, crews were able to simply fill in the void beneath the highway and pave over it. Filling in the Seekonk River and paving over it is not an option, he said.
What will RIers do during the shutdown?
The official Washington Bridge detour takes westbound drivers north along the Seekonk to the newly slimmed down Henderson Bridge and a new roundabout some drivers find confusing.
Afraid of getting stuck in the gridlock of that detour, many drivers began planning alternate routes north through Attleboro and Pawtucket or south through Aquidneck Island. However, the Newport Pell Bridge had previously been reduced to one lane for maintenance, resulting in long delays there.
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Alviti said he is talking to the owner of a ferry about running 25-passenger commuter boat service from Bristol to Providence to try to ease traffic.
He said the state is also looking at ways to increase RIPTA service.
Years of repairs
If it seems like the Washington Bridge has been under construction for years, that’s because it has.
The eastbound span was reconstructed within the last 15 years, Alviti said, relieving any concerns it may have similar problems. (The bike path next to the bridge is also open and expected to see a bump in usage.)
Rhode Island began an initial phase of repairs to the westbound span’s substructure in 2017. In 2018 lane closures resulted in giant delays on I-195 with cars backed up well into Massachusetts and when asked about the problem then-Gov. Gina Raimondo said, “A traffic engineer I am not.”
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Because of the traffic nightmare, the DOT terminated work and a contract awarded to Cardi Corp., then began planning a major rehabilitation that began in 2021.
Cardi won the initial bid for the full rehabilitation project, but competitor Barletta Heavy Division sued, claiming Cardi was able to undercut other vendors using its inside knowledge with what it had already done in the first phase.
Federal highway officials also objected to the initial procurement and the DOT put it back out to bid with Barletta winning. Cardi sued but a judge ruled in the state’s favor.
It was not entirely clear Tuesday how much of the span was going to be repaired under the first phase of work, but Alviti said the scope of work did not include the pins at the center of the current problem.
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The cost
Alviti said it was too soon to know how much extra the emergency closure and temporary work will add to the cost of the full reconstruction project, which had been estimated to cost $78 million and be completed in the summer of 2026.
The federal government typically picks up 80% of highway repair costs, which would put the state share at around $15 million. That doesn’t count any of the roughly $18 million spent on the aborted first phase.
Four Rhode Island hospitals — Newport, Miriam, South County and Westerly — received top marks in the fall report from Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit that grades hospitals on safety.
The Washington, D.C.-based Leapfrog assigns hospitals letter grades based on data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as well as Leapfrog’s own surveys. Rhode Island’s hospitals didn’t perform much differently than they did in spring 2024 (The Miriam and Newport have consistently earned A’s the past two years), with two notable exceptions. Westerly’s A is its first since 2022. Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket, which has received nine consecutive A grades, dropped to a B.
Kent Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital also received B grades. The embattled Our Lady of Fatima Hospital and Roger Williams Medical Center both earned C grades.
South County Hospital’s good report card was a boon to Dr. Kevin Charpentier, the vice president and chief medical officer at South County Health, the hospital’s parent company.
“It’s more than a score — it’s a promise to our community of prioritizing the highest level of patient care,” Charpentier wrote in an email.
The score was also a bit of good news amid an ongoing dispute between the hospital’s administration and its staff. A September letter sent by doctors and nurses to the South County Health’s board of trustees detailed escalating tensions between providers and management, with doctor resignations, service cuts and growing patient backlogs among the signatories’ concerns.
Landmark’s B left its CEO Mike Souza disappointed.
“We take quality very seriously and our team has already put plans in place to address the areas needing improvement,” Souza said in an emailed response to Rhode Island Current. “Our community will continue to receive great care and our expectation is that we will return to an ‘A’ grade in the near future.”
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Leapfrog aggregates 30 metrics to assess how well hospitals care for patients as well as prevent bad outcomes, like infections and falls. The grades are given to roughly 3,000 hospitals, not including VA hospitals or children’s hospitals. Hospitals that lack enough data for multiple metrics are also excluded.
Lisa P. Tomasso, senior vice president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island, said via email that the trade group was pleased with the state’s performance. But she added that the grades, while insightful, are “not comprehensive, as they exclude factors like social determinants of health, community-level health challenges, and systemic issues like Medicaid reimbursement rates.”
But grades still hold value. Robert Hackey, a professor of health sciences at Providence College, said that “hospitals that don’t do well tend to poke holes in whatever rating methodology that’s used.”
“If you look at the hospitals in Rhode Island, for the most part, we’re performing very well,” Hackey said. “Yeah, we obviously have two low performers. It’s Fatima and Roger Williams. And there’s a common thread there. They’re both owned by Prospect and they’re both for-profit institutions, yeah. And they both struggle.”
A representative for CharterCARE Health Partners, the Rhode Island subsidiary for Prospect Medical Holdings, which owns Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, did not respond to requests for comment. Facing growing debt, Prospect has sought to unload many of the hospitals in its portfolio, including the two safety net hospitals in Rhode Island. A proposal to sell Roger Williams and Fatima to a new, nonprofit owner, received conditional approval from state regulators in June, but the status of financing required to complete the transaction is unclear.
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Hackey said it’s a bad sign when hospitals ignore questions on Leapfrog’s survey — something both Fatima and Roger Williams Medical Center did when it came to inquiries about nursing and leadership. Our Lady of Fatima Hospital’s ‘C’ grade is indicative of ongoing quality issues at Prospect Medical Holdings’ hospitals in Rhode Island, says Providence College Professor Robert Hackey. (Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)
Meanwhile hospitals owned by the state’s largest health care system — Brown University Health, formerly Lifespan Corporation — all performed well. Rhode Island Hospital, the state’s flagship hospital, received a B grade despite demonstrating below-average prevention rates of blood and urinary tract infections and falls causing broken hips, as well as less-than-stellar marks for hospital leadership and communication about medicines with patients.
Since 2021, Rhode Island Hospital has received C grades more often than not. The B is evidence that things are improving, said Dr. Dean Roye, senior vice president for medical affairs and chief medical officer at the hospital. The Leapfrog grades “help us pinpoint areas” to work on, Roye said. He added that a reorganization of quality and safety departments across Brown Health’s properties was another factor in Rhode Island Hospital’s improved grade.
But Hackey is eyeing another Brown property, the A-graded Miriam, for a surgery he has scheduled for December. He explained with a laugh that checking the Leapfrog ratings was one of the first things he did when deciding where to have his surgery.
“The goal of this is to have a more educated healthcare consumer,” he said.
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Above average results
Leapfrog uses the percentage of A grade hospitals in a state to determine a state’s national ranking. Almost 61% of Utah’s hospitals received A grades, giving it the top slot nationwide. The top 10 states all sported at least 40% A grade hospitals.
An A grade indicates hospitals that prioritize safety, said Alex Campione, program analyst for the Leapfrog Group, who noted that about 32% of hospitals nationwide achieved this grade. Rhode Island was over the national average with 44% of its hospitals receiving an A grade.
“Each year more than 250,000 people will die in hospitals due to preventable errors, injuries, accidents, and infections,” Campione said. “We estimate that, at the very least, 50,000 of those lives could be saved if all hospitals performed like A hospitals.”
Rhode Island placed fourth nationwide in Leapfrog’s spring 2024 scores, also with 44% at an A grade, but it was pushed out of the top five this time around by three states that rose with higher grades: California, North Carolina and Connecticut. Connecticut was the only other New England state to crack the top 10. Vermont fared worst of all, and was ranked 48th nationwide, tying for last place with North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa. There was not a single A grade hospital in any of these states.
Grading the graders
But a bad report card might not be the final word on a hospital’s quality. A 2019 article in New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst graded the graders, and gave Leapfrog a C-, the second lowest of the four systems reviewed. The study noted that Leapfrog had a detailed framework for measurement, with a unique focus on the hospitals’ “culture of safety.” But it also relied on its proprietary survey for a good chunk of its data — a problem, the authors thought, since Leapfrog grades hospitals the same regardless of whether they complete the survey.
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Dr. Karl Bilimoria of the Indiana University School of Medicine, who chairs the school’s surgery department and leads its Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center, led the 2019 study. He wrote in an email Tuesday to Rhode Island Current that Leapfrog’s efforts still leave something to be desired.
“Leapfrog has many issues with their methodology and their general approach that persist and they have been the least receptive to improvement suggestions and the least adaptive to changes in the science of quality measurement,” Bilimoria wrote.
Asked about Bilimoria’s idea that Leapfrog is not responsive to suggestions, spokesperson Lula Hailesilassie said by email that the public is regularly invited to submit feedback on proposed changes to its surveys. Comments on the 2025 survey are open through Dec. 13, 2024.
PROVIDENCE — The application period for Rhode Island’s charter schools opened this week, giving families a shot at roughly 3,000 seats projected to be available at charter schools next year.
A blind lottery for available seats will be held on April 1. Charter schools are in high demand in Rhode Island, with roughly 11,000 families submitting 30,000 applications for 2,500 seats lasts year. (Families can apply for more than one school.)
There are about 13,000 Rhode Island public school students currently enrolled in 25 charters, some of which are larger networks with multiple schools.
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Despite the demand, teachers unions and other public school advocates have sought to block the expansion of charter schools, concerned they are financially hurting the traditional public school system. School funding follows each child from their home school district to the charter school.
In this week’s episode of the Rhode Island Report, Chiara Deltito-Sharrott from the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools talks about the future of charter schools in Rhode Island, and provides a rebuttal to comments made by Maribeth Calabro, the head of Rhode Island’s largest teachers union, in an episode earlier this month.
Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.
United Way of Rhode Island accepts initial donations from the Fund’s sponsoring energy companies. (courtesy: United Way of Rhode Island)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — United Way of Rhode Island announced the Rhode Island Good Neighbor Energy Fund has begun for the 2024 through 2025 season.
The fund helps families that need assistance paying their home heating bills but are not eligible for federal or state assistance.
Since it was founded, the Good Neighbor Energy Fund has aided over 48,250 Rhode Island homes.
United RI says any local households in the state that are in need of funding assistance for energy are encouraged to contact a local Community Action Program agency, or to call the 211 helpline for help locating a CAP agency.
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GNEF eligibility is determined on total income not exceeding 300% of the federal poverty level, and provides up to $825 per household each heating season depending on eligibility, fuel type, and need.
United RI said in addition to sponsors, the fund relies on Rhode Islanders who donate through the “Warm Thy Neighbor” campaign.
Donations can be made through the yellow donation envelope enclosed with monthly energy bills, or by scanning the QR code on the envelope.
Additionally, donations can be given through phone by texting “WARM” to 91999.
For more information, visit United Way of Rhode Island’s website here.
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