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HealthGrades identifies 88 hospitals as leaders in patient safety

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, August 13, 2004

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HealthGrades, Inc., has recognized 88 hospitals as the leaders in patient safety across the U.S. The Lakewood, CO-based healthcare quality ratings and services company awarded the hospitals with its Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient Safety July 27, describing the award as the first national hospital award to focus purely on hospital patient safety.

The award is designed to highlight hospitals with the best records of patient safety in the nation, and to encourage consumers to research their local hospitals before undergoing a procedure.

The organization based the awards on a detailed study of patient safety events in hospitals nationwide from 2000 to 2002, using 16 of the 20 patient safety indicators developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The indicators included accidental punctures or lacerations; anesthesia complications; decubitus ulcers; and post-operative hip fractures.

HealthGrades' award-winners were identified as the top 7.5% of the hospitals studied and had significantly different patient safety incident rates and costs compared to hospitals that were average or in the bottom 10th percentile.

The "best" hospitals had a lower number of avoidable deaths. In addition, their inpatient hospital costs were directly related to their lower overall patient safety incident rates.

"If all the Medicare patients who were admitted to the bottom 10th percentile of hospitals from 2000 to 2002 were instead admitted to the 'best' hospitals, approximately 4,000 lives and $580 million would have been saved," says Samantha Collier, MD, HealthGrades' vice president of medical affairs.

The winning hospitals included, in no particular order, Holy Family Memorial Inc., in Manitowoc, WI; Rogue Valley Medical Center, in Medford, OR; St. Elizabeths Hospital in Utica, NY; and St. Alexius Medical Center in Bismarck, ND.

HealthGrades released the list July 27, along with the results of its study, which found that an average of 195,000 people in the U.S. died each year of potentially preventable medical errors in 2000, 2001, and 2002.

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