Hospital safety grades ‘significantly’ improved, since the pandemic
The Leapfrog Group, which graded 3,000 hospitals on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents and infection, measures nurse and doctor communication, hospital staff responsiveness and communication about medicines.
Hospital patient safety has increased significantly since the height of the pandemic, according to the latest Hospital Safety Grades from The Leapfrog Group. The nonprofit organization graded nearly 3,000 general hospitals on a scale from A to F on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents and infections.
“Patient experience is very difficult to influence without delivering better care, so these findings are encouraging,” said Leah Binder, the group’s president and CEO. “We were also pleased to see the decrease in preventable infections, which cause terrible suffering and sometimes death. When we look at these positive trends, we see lives saved — and that is gratifying.”
In addition to assigning letter grades to individual hospitals, researchers also reported best patient safety performance by state and, for the first time, by metro area based on the highest percentage of “A” hospitals. Utah ranks number one among states for the second cycle in a row, while the three leading metro areas are Allentown, PA, Winston-Salem, NC; and New Orleans, LA.
Researchers evaluate patient experience through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services uses to publicly report patients’ perspectives of hospital care. The report focuses on five patient experience measures that have a direct impact on safety outcomes:
- Nurse communication
- Doctor communication
- Hospital staff responsiveness
- Communication about medicines
- Discharge information
Patient experience began to worsen at the start of the pandemic. Although the spring report shows the first signs of improvement, with all measures significantly improving since fall 2023, they still are far from pre-pandemic levels. However, 92% of hospitals have improved performance on at least one of three dangerous preventable health care associated infections since 2022:
- Central line-associated bloodstream infections decreased by 34%;
- Catheter-associated urinary tract infections dropped by 30%; and
- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus also fell by 30%.
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Even with the improvement, an estimated 250,000 people a year die of preventable errors and infections in hospitals, which makes patient safety problems the third-leading cause of death in the United States.
“While today’s results are promising, patient safety remains a crisis-level hazard in health care,” Binder said. “Some hospitals are much better than others at protecting patients from harm, and that’s why we make the Hospital Safety Grade available to the public and why we encourage all hospitals to focus more attention on safety.”