SPRING VALLEY — Designed to rate how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections, the latest Hospital Safety Score honored St. Margaret’s Health with an “A” — its top grade in patient safety. The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading experts on patient safety and is administered by The Leapfrog Group (Leapfrog), an independent industry watchdog. The first and only hospital safety rating to be peer-reviewed in the "Journal of Patient Safety," the score is free to the public and designed to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.
“We are very pleased that our hard work has been recognized by the Leapfrog Group;” said Tim Muntz, president /CEO of St. Margaret’s. “I would like to commend the medical staff and employees who all play an integral part in providing our patients safe, quality care during their stay in our hospital.”
“Safety should come first for our families when we pick a hospital because errors and infections are common and deadly,” said Leah Binder, president/CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which produces the Hospital Safety Score. “No hospital is perfect, but we congratulate the board, clinicians, administration and staff of St. Margaret’s for achieving an 'A' and showing us that you made the well-being of your patients your top priority.”
Calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in spring 2014, with about 32-percent receiving an “A” grade. The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, and its website offers a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades.
To see how St. Margaret's score compares locally and nationally, and to access safety tips for patients and their loved ones, visit the Hospital Safety Score website at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org. Consumers can also go to www.hospitalsafetyscore.org for a free download of the Hospital Safety Score app.