Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center received the top score of “A” by the Leapfrog Group in its annual safety report, which examined and graded more than 2,500 hospitals throughout the United States.
The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits, released its Hospital Safety Scoresafter examining publicly available data on patient injuries, medical and medication errors and infections at U.S. hospitals, which were then assigned A, B, C, D or F grades for their safety records.
“For the third year in a row, Kaiser Permanente Fresno is being recognized with the top safety rating because of the high-quality, superior care we provide to our patients and members,” said Jeff Collins, senior vice president and area manager in a release. “At Kaiser Permanente Fresno, we put safety first as we work to improve the health of our patients and the communities we serve.”
Kaiser Permanente Fresno is the only hospital in Fresno, Madera, Tulare and Kings counties to receive an “A” score.
Nineteen Northern California Kaiser Permanente hospitals received “A” scores including: Antioch, Fremont, Fresno, Hayward, Manteca, Modesto, Oakland, Richmond, Roseville, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, San Rafael, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa, South Sacramento, South San Francisco, Vacaville and Walnut Creek. Additionally, Kaiser Permanente Redwood City and Vallejo received “B” scores.
“Our physicians, nurses and staff are committed to caring for our patients in a safe and healing environment,” said Physician-in-Chief Varoujan Altebarmakian in the release.
The Leapfrog Group is a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage founded in 2000 to work for improvements in health care safety, quality and affordability. It is an independent advocacy group working with a broad range of partners, including hospitals and insurers.
Since 2006, the organization has published an annual list of top hospitals in the U.S. using national measures of health-care quality, safety and efficiency. This is the third year it has published the hospital safety scores, which uses 28 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.
Date: May 05, 2014