Hospitals respond to Leapfrog safety report

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Two Delaware hospital groups have responded to the recent report on preventable errors and infections at hospitals.

The Leapfrog Group  released safety grades from A to F for 2,600 hospitals earlier this month. No Delaware hospitals received an A grade. The three states not receiving the A grade were all in states with less than one million population and relatively few hospitals.

Both  St. Francis Healthcare and Christiana Care Health System did not participate  in a written  survey on patient safety.

Sharon Anderson, senior vice president  Quality and Patient Safety, and chief population health officer at Christiana Care Health System said Leapfrog “collects some of its data by surveying hospitals, and the survey itself is resource-intensive to complete. This year we opted not to participate in the written survey, which is why some of our data is identified as ‘not reported’ in the Leapfrog report.”

Anderson said the health system is  “committed to providing safe, highly reliable care and an exceptional experience to everyone we serve. As we work to deliver expert, effective care that our neighbors value, we gain insights from all of the respected national hospital ratings systems that help us to continually improve care. Leapfrog is one such rating system; there are many others. All of them have unique ways of evaluating the data and extrapolating results, and they don’t always agree with each other.”

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Anderson went to note that the two-hospital Christiana Care was one of less than nine percent  of hospitals nationwide that has earned a five-star rating from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Hospital Compare, the highest rating a hospital can achieve. She went on to cite a number of other top ratings from Healthgrades, and the American College of Surgeons.

St. Francis which has a hospital in Wilmington, issued the following:

“Saint Francis Healthcare also does not participate in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, but we do take patient safety very seriously. In fact, we were recently recognized by Highmark Delaware for our continual commitment to providing patients with high-quality, safe, cost-effective care as part of its Quality Blue Hospital Pay for Value Program. Saint Francis is the only hospital in Delaware to receive recognition at the highest level for achieving key performance targets in hospital readmissions, perinatal care, surgical safety and hospital infection prevention. Saint Francis was one of only 19 percent of hospitals in the three-state region to receive a perfect score.”

 The five states with the lowest percentage of “A” hospitals are Connecticut, Nebraska, Washington, D.C., Delaware and North Dakota.

All Delaware hospitals received a C grade, with the exception of Nanticoke Healthcare, Seaford,  which received a B.

Other hospitals in central and southern Delaware did not respond to a request for comment.

Peninsula Regional Medical Center, near the Delaware border in Salisbury, MD,  received an A grade.

Click here for the state grades.

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