by Doug Campbell
Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) has again been recognized among the safest hospitals in the nation after receiving a fall 2021 safety grade of “A” from the Leapfrog group.
Leapfrog is a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage that works to encourage health care safety, quality and affordability.
Leapfrog’s Hospital Safety Score uses numerous measures of publicly available hospital data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries and medical errors.
These measures come from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and secondary data sources such as the American Hospital Association’s Annual Survey and Information Technology Supplement. The measures are weighted and then combined to produce a single composite score that is published as an A, B, C, D or F letter grade.
“Continual emphasis on the safety of our patients and employees is our foremost priority. This ‘A’ score is perhaps more meaningful than others in the past given the challenges of the pandemic. I want to congratulate and express my gratitude to everyone for the outcomes attributing to this score,” said C. Wright Pinson, MBA, MD, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Health System Officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
To determine a safety grade, Leapfrog not only looks at outcome measures, but also processes measures such as staff responsiveness and structural measures like the overall hospital environment and how thoroughly technology is embedded into the delivery of care.
“The Leapfrog Recognition is truly a reflection of our team’s commitment to patient safety through unprecedented times and making care patient safety personal,” said Jenny Slayton, DNP, RN, Senior Vice President for Quality, Safety and Risk Prevention at VUMC.
In the recent survey, 2,900 hospitals across the nation were assigned grades of A, B, C, D or F for safety, and only 30% received an “A.”
Shon Dwyer, MBA, RN, President of VUH, said the recognition is well deserved.
“We are tremendously proud of the never-ending quality and safety focus that our faculty and staff provide every day, to every patient. This recognition by Leapfrog is a great acknowledgement and reflects the dedication of all. The adult hospital has and will continue to build quality and safety systems with input from our caregivers, patients and families,” Dwyer said.
The safety score for each hospital can be found at http://hospitalsafetyscore.org/.
Together, Leapfrog members provide health benefits to more than 37 million Americans in all 50 states.
