By Greg Freeman
The most recent Hospital Safety Grades from The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit focused on patient safety, show improvement in key areas. The fall 2024 report evaluated nearly 3,000 hospitals on their ability to prevent medical errors, accidents and infections.
Utah ranks No. 1, with the highest percentage of “A” hospitals for the third cycle in a row, followed by Virginia and Connecticut in second and third, respectively. The latest grades also show progress in patient safety across several performance measures. The improvements were seen in healthcare-associated infections, hand hygiene, and medication safety. The states with the highest percentages of “A” hospitals are Utah, Virginia, Connecticut, North Carolina, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and South Carolina.
California ranks in the top 10 for the first time since fall 2014. There were no “A” hospitals in Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, or Vermont. The fall report saw great improvement across the board, says Katie Stewart, director of healthcare ratings with Leapfrog in Washington, DC.
“Our fall release highlighted some changes and improvement, specifically in healthcare-associated infections. Previously, during COVID-19, we’ve really seen a peak in healthcare-associated infections. And since then, we have seen central line-associated bloodstream infections decrease by 38%, catheter-associated urinary tract infections decrease by 36%, and [Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] infections decreased by 34%,” she says. “These healthcare-associated infections are preventable infections that were not present when a patient was admitted to the hospital, and they are among the leading threats to patient safety, affecting about one out of every 31 hospital patients at any one time.”
Hand hygiene goes hand-in-hand with infections, Stewart notes, and Leapfrog is seeing improvements in the achievement of our hand hygiene standard.
“We also look at two different medication safety measures, and we’ve seen an increased adoption of those computerized prescriber order entries, so that’s really helping to catch prescribing errors at the point of ordering, and then bar code medication administration, which is helping with medication errors at the point of administration,” she says. “The medication errors are the most common type of error that occurs in hospitals, so it’s great to see progress on these two measures in particular.”
Since the pandemic, hospitals have recommitted to reducing infections, which largely are preventable, Stewart says. They are doing things like improving hand hygiene practices, optimizing antibiotic stewardship, using different technology for infection control, and working on education and training for staff, she says.
“I’m certainly optimistic. We hope to see continued progress on these areas,” she says. “I think it is promising that we’re continuing to report on improvements in healthcare-associated infections, which we’ve reported for the last couple of rounds as well.”
Source
- Katie Stewart, Director of Healthcare Ratings, The Leapfrog Group, Washington, DC. Telephone: (202) 292-6713.
Greg Freeman has worked with Relias Media and its predecessor companies since 1989, moving from assistant staff writer to executive editor before becoming a freelance writer. He has been the editor of Healthcare Risk Management since 1992 and provides research and content for other Relias Media products. In addition to his work with Relias Media, Greg provides other freelance writing services and is the author of seven narrative nonfiction books on wartime experiences and other historical events.