Christiana Care earns ‘A’ in patient safety

Christiana Care earns ‘A’ in patient safety

nurse administering antibiotic
Cherie Barnes, RN, administers antibiotics to a patient prior to surgery at Christiana Hospital. Christiana Care’s high rate of compliance in pre- and post-surgical patient care contributed to its A grade in hospital safety from Leapfrog.

For the second time this year, Christiana Care Health System achieved an “A” Hospital Safety Score by The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits.

The A score was awarded in the latest update to the Hospital Safety Score – the A, B, C, D or F scores assigned to U.S. hospitals based on preventable medical errors, injuries, accidents and infections. Leapfrog compiled the score under the guidance of the nation’s leading experts on patient safety.

Christiana Care was one of only 58 percent of hospitals retaining the A grade since Leapfrog’s initial Hospital Safety Score report in June 2012. With 50 percent of hospitals in Delaware receiving the A grade, the state ranks third in the U.S. in preventing errors and avoiding harm, according to Leapfrog.

Based on scores from more than 2,600 hospitals, Leapfrog awarded an A to 790 hospitals, a B to 678 hospitals, a C to 1,004 hospitals, a D to 121 hospitals and an F to 25 hospitals.

“The A grade from Leapfrog demonstrates our commitment to patient safety and transforming our care – serving our patients as expert, caring partners in their health each and every day,” said Sharon Anderson, senior vice president of Quality and Patient Safety at Christiana Care. “Providing high quality care and ensuring patient safety are always our top priorities. This recognition is testimony to the hard work of our doctors, nurses and entire hospital team.”

“Hospitals that earn an A have demonstrated their commitment to their patients and their community,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “I congratulate Christiana Care for its safety excellence and look forward to the day when all hospitals will match this standard.”

Calculated under the guidance of The Leapfrog Group’s nine-member Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 26 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries, and medical and medication errors.

Besides The Leapfrog Group, the measures come from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American Hospital Association. The measures include:

  • Surgical infection prevention.
  • Falls and trauma.
  • Central line associated bloodstream infection
  • Post-operative pulmonary embolism/deep vein thrombosis

Members of the Blue Ribbon panel include: John Birkmeyer (University of Michigan), Ashish Jha (Harvard University), Lucian Leape (Harvard University), Arnold Millstein (Stanford University), Peter Pronovost (Johns Hopkins University), Patrick Romano (University of California, Davis), Sara Singer (Harvard University), Tim Vogus (Vanderbilt University), and Robert Wachter (University of California, San Francisco).

To see Christiana Care’s scores and how they compare locally and nationally, visit the Hospital Safety Score website.

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