ChristianaCare earns high marks in Leapfrog hospital safety rankings
Christiana Hospital achieves an ‘A’ grade and Wilmington Hospital a ‘B’ grade in fall 2019 rankings
Christiana Hospital was awarded an ‘A’ and Wilmington Hospital was awarded a ‘B’ in the fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction that recognizes ChristianaCare’s achievements in protecting patients from harm and providing safer health care.
The Leapfrog Group is an independent national ratings organization that assigns safety grades of ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘F’ to all general hospitals across the country based on their performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care.
In addition to individual hospital grades, Leapfrog also ranks states for their hospital safety. Overall, the latest state rankings show Delaware ranked 23rd in the nation for hospital safety, advancing from 47th in the spring 2019 rankings.
“ChristianaCare caregivers are committed to ensuring the health and safety of the people we serve, and this distinction reinforces that,” said Sharon Anderson, MS, BSN, RN, BSN, FACHE, senior vice president, Quality and Patient Safety, and chief virtual health officer. “We are grateful for the recognition and remain focused on continuous improvement, delivering optimal health and an exceptional experience of care to everyone we serve — every time.”
Christiana Hospital is Delaware’s largest hospital, providing a level of care only available in large-scale teaching hospitals. It includes Delaware’s only Level I trauma center, which is prepared to handle the most extreme medical emergencies. Christiana Hospital is the only high-risk delivering hospital in Delaware offering Level III neonatal intensive care, with more than 6,100 babies born at Christiana Hospital each year. Christiana Hospital also is designated as a comprehensive stroke center, capable of handling the most complex stroke cases as part of Delaware’s statewide stroke system of care.
“‘A’ hospitals show us their leadership is protecting patients from preventable medical harm and error,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “It takes genuine commitment at every level — from clinicians to administrators to the board of directors — and we congratulate the teams who have worked so hard to earn this ‘A.’”
Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year.
The recognition is the latest in a series of quality and safety accolades that ChristianaCare has achieved. ChristianaCare was recently named among the nation’s 100 best health systems in four service lines by Healthgrades. And ChristianaCare was rated a Best Hospital and recognized for high performance for all nine surgical procedures and chronic conditions evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. Delaware ranks No. 1 in the nation for Hospital Quality and 6th in the nation for Health Care Quality in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent rankings.
