Hospital Safety Score grades hospitals on how safe they are so that patients can protect themselves (Photo : You Tube/The Leapfrog Group)
The hospital safety rankings for spring 2016 was recently announced by the non-profit group Leapfrog. The organization was founded and being run by health care providers and employers in the health sect. The group released the safety scores for the people to know how safe the hospitals around them are.
The Leapfrog Group assessed and graded over 2,500 hospitals across the United States. It grades the medical facilities by using letter attributes and the scores are determined by looking into the number of accidents, infections, medical errors and injuries occurred within the premises.
In the press release, Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group said, "It is time for every hospital in America to put patient safety at the top of their priority list, because tens of thousands of lives are stake."
She further said that the Hospital Safety Score is very helpful as it open the eyes of everyone to the dangers as even grade A hospitals are not totally safe. In addition, Leapfrog stated that picking the right medical facility can lower the risk of death by as much as 50 percent.
This finding was based on the study led by Matt Austin, assistant professor at the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at John Hopkins University School of Medicine. The analysis revealed that hospitals with D and F grades places patients at about 50 percent higher risk of mortality compared to A hospitals.
Likewise, the grades given to hospitals are from A to F, with the former as the highest level. In the assessment, out of 2,571 hospitals in the U.S., 798 were given an A while 639 got a B. The count for C graded hospitals is 957, 162 for D and finally15 facilities got an F.
According to Hospital Safety Score, Vermont hospitals placed first as the safest out of the 50 states. The ranking was discerned based on the number of grade A hospitals they have in contrast to the total number of health facilities that operate in the region.
At any rate, here are the top 15 hospitals for the first half of 2016: Vermont followed by Maine hospitals, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Idaho, Wisconsin, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Carolina, Oregon, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Virginia and Illinois. Leapfrog usually release hospital scores twice a year so the ranking may still change within the year.
See the video below to understand what the hospital safety score is and why it is important:
