South County only R.I. hospital to receive A grade in Leapfrog report

SOUTH COUNTY HOSPITAL was the only Rhode Island hospital to receive an A grade in the latest hospital safety scorecard from The Leapfrog Group.  / COURTESY SOUTH COUNTY HOSPITAL
SOUTH COUNTY HOSPITAL was the only Rhode Island hospital to receive an A grade in the latest hospital safety scorecard from The Leapfrog Group. / COURTESY SOUTH COUNTY HOSPITAL

(Updated 1:34 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island ranked 42nd among the states, while Massachusetts ranked second, in fall 2015 hospital safety scores released by The Leapfrog Group this week.
Rhode Island had one hospital receive the top grade of A – South County Hospital in South Kingstown – out of nine ranked.
Massachusetts, in comparison, had 35 hospitals receive A grades out of 58 ranked, including Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Saint Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford and Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro.

Five Rhode Island hospitals received B grades: Kent County Memorial Hospital in Warwick; Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island in Pawtucket; Newport Hospital, Newport; Rhode Island Hospital, Providence; and The Miriam Hospital, Providence. Two received C grades: St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode Island (Our Lady of Fatima Hospital) in North Providence and Westerly Hospital in Westerly. The lowest grade – D – went to Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket.
The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit organization, rated hospitals on accidents, errors, infections and injuries.

Twenty-eight measures, including intensive care unit physician staffing, hand hygiene and foreign object retained, were used to calculate A, B, C, D or F grades; 2,530 hospitals were surveyed.

A total of 773 hospitals earned an A, 724 earned a B, 866 earned a C, 133 earned a D and 34 earned an F. In addition, 133 hospitals earned the “Straight A” designation given to hospitals that have consistently received an A grade for safety since the Hospital Safety Score launched in 2012. Saint Anne’s and Sturdy Memorial received the “Straight A” designation.
Also, for the fourth year in a row, Maine claimed the top spot overall for the state with the highest percentage of A hospitals, with nearly 69 percent of its hospitals – 11 out of 16 – receiving an A.

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“Taking a deeper look at the 133 ‘Straight A’ hospitals reveals a diverse group, similar only in their consistent commitment to patient safety. Hospitals from across the country, with 100 beds to over 750 beds, nonprofit and for-profit alike received this top honor,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a statement. “No matter how large or small, no matter what kind of community they serve, all hospitals have the potential to give their patients this high level of safe care.”
Improvement across the board nationwide remains elusive, Leapfrog said in its report. The fall 2015 update revealed a number of positive trends for certain hospital-acquired conditions and safety measures, but it also said hospitals are performing worse on critical measures such as foreign objects left in after surgery. “Overall, performance on safe practices and process measures varied greatly,” the report said.
Some Rhode Island hospitals were not graded because they fell into the specialty category, which exempts them, or because they lacked the required 15 measures for a score to be given. A Leapfrog Group spokeswoman also said the group has strict criteria about which hospitals are eligible to receive a hospital safety score, as hospitals must qualify as general acute-care hospitals and must have enough publicly reported data to meet the scoring threshold.

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