COURT HOUSE – Research by the Leapfrog Group, a national non-profit “committed to driving quality, safety and transparency in the U.S. health system,” shows that there are 161,000 avoidable deaths annually in the nation’s hospitals.
The analysis of avoidable deaths was done by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. The message is that all hospitals are not equal when it comes to patient safety.
Twice a year, the Leapfrog Group collects data on 28 measures of hospital safety and issues a grade A through F for over 2,600 hospitals across the country. The spring 2019 grades were released, which New Jersey residents in general and Cape May County residents may find interesting.
In the Garden State, 68 of the 71 general acute care hospitals were rated in the report with almost half of the hospitals, 46%, receiving an A grade. That statistic placed the state in sixth place behind Oregon, Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts, and Utah.
Locally, the three hospitals that serve much of Cape May County scored well in the report.
- Shore Medical Center in Somers Point rated an A, a score the hospital has achieved bi-annually each year since 2014.
- Cape Regional Medical Center received a B grade, a grade the center has achieved for the last five rating periods.
- AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center – City Campus and Mainland Campus received grades of B.
Nationwide, 58% of the hospitals received A or B ratings, with the remaining 42% at C or lower. To give some idea how important hospital safety is, the avoidable death analysis done by Johns Hopkins showed that a patient in a D or F rated hospital has a 92% greater chance of suffering an avoidable death.
The rating system makes use of 28 variables of hospital safety, ranging from efforts to prevent infections to surgery mishaps, to procedures that control medications, to patient ratings of hospital staff. Much of the data is based on what hospitals have to report to the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with additional input from a Leapfrog Hospital Survey.
A panel of experts listed on the organization’s website work to refine the measures and develop a scoring methodology. There are 28 measures of publically available safety data.
These are broken into groups of process, structural and outcomes measures. The measures are weighted and the data analyzed with the final score being an indication of the hospital’s relative place.
The Leapfrog Group’s website allows the public to get behind the overall score and see a rating for each measure at each hospital.
A color-coded score of green for above average, yellow for average, and red for below average is presented, along with the hospital’s actual score and the nation’s average score for that measure. The website is available at www.hospitalsafetygrade.org/.
Quality hospitals are not evenly distributed across the nation. Four states and the District of Columbia have no A-rated hospitals. The specific rating also can clash with general public perception.
George Washington University Hospital in Washington, a well-known teaching facility, received a C grade in this report. Although the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania received an A grade, it did so with 13 green above-average scores across 23 measures, fewer greens than Cape Regional, but with very high scores in select areas.
The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Guide is peer-reviewed, a step that provides added legitimacy to the findings. The measures and ratings are developed under the guidance of an expert panel of patient safety specialists from across the country. There are hospitals that do not participate in the reviews.
The program also does not include specialized hospitals like children’s hospitals, cancer centers, rehabilitation facilities, federal hospitals, or long-term care facilities, etc. This program is aimed at evaluating general acute care hospitals.
Speaking of its A grade, Shore Medical Center said: “Spring 2019 marks the 10th consecutive rating period in which Shore earned this prestigious grade.”
The statement went on to add that the rating recognizes Shore Medical Center’s efforts in providing “safe health care.”
Andrea McCoy, M.D., chief medical officer at Cape Regional Medical Center said, “We applaud Leapfrog for the work they do in measuring quality in hospitals across the country. Cape Regional is very proud of our commitment to quality, patient safety, and being a high-reliability organization.”
McCoy added, “Our focus has always been on our community and providing high-quality healthcare.”
In an online statement, AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center stressed that “quality is central to all that we do.” The statement added that both hospitals are always seeking “to attain the highest level of quality in patient safety and service.”
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.
