Christiana Care earns “A” for patient safety

Christiana Care achieved an “A” grade for hospital safety — the highest possible grade — in the most recent round of Hospital Safety Scores released Oct. 29 by the Leapfrog Group, a national, nonprofit industry watchdog that measures and publicly reports hospital performance.

The score includes 28 safety measures to produce a single letter grade of “A” through “F,” which Leapfrog assigned based on each hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm, including accidents, errors, injuries and infections.

Christiana Care Health System received two Leapfrog A grades, for Christiana Hospital and Wilmington Hospital. Christiana Care is the only hospital in Delaware to earn “A’s.” More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals received safety scores in fall 2014, with 790 receiving the top grade – down from 840 A’s assigned in spring 2014 scoring.

The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, and its website offers a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades. The group used data from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, CDC, CMS, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) annual survey.

According to Leapfrog, the rating is 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.