Dive Brief:
- The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Scores, released today, reveal “sluggish” patient safety improvements and 46% of hospitals changed their safety grade.
- Of the 2,530 hospitals issued a Hospital Safety Score, 773 earned an A, 724 earned a B, 866 earned a C, 133 earned a D and 34 earned an F.
- Of the 28 measures used to calculate the grades, hospital performance improved on average on eight measures but average performance declined on six measures.
Dive Insight:
Of those hospitals that changed grades, there were no positive or negative trends, Jillian Laffrey, senior communications and membership coordinator at The Leapfrog Group, told Healthcare Dive.
She noted that while patient safety improvements seem sluggish across the board, some initiatives, such as CPOE, are improving. However, Laffrey noted there were some “troubling” findings such as foreign objects left in after surgery. “That should never happen,” Laffrey said.
In addition, Laffrey stated, while the traffic ebbs and flows, “hundreds of thousands” of consumers look at the scores. “[The scores] are a great way for hospital executives to know the public has their eye on them and to identify areas of improvement.”
“Patients are getting more frustrated with a lack of transparency with hospitals,” Laffrey stated. She added the organization has talked to patients who if they can't find information about their hospitals or the hosptials aren't getting patient safety scores, "they assume the worst. Patients expect to know what's going on in their hospital.”
Laffrey also noted that The Leapfrog Group updated data of all of the 28 measures. The data, which affect hospital’s safety scores, include measures from CMS, the American Hospital Association, and from The Leapfrog Group itself if available.
In addition to the changing grades, key findings include 133 hospitals earned the “Straight A” designation, which calls attention to hospitals who have consistently received an A grade for safety since the Hospital Safety Score launched in 2012 and, for the fourth time in a row, Maine claimed the number-one spot for the state with the highest percentage of A hospitals, with nearly 69 percent of its hospitals receiving an A.
Zero hospitals in the District of Columbia, Alaska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Vermont, or Wyoming received an A grade.