(The Center Square) – Minnesota’s portion of hospitals with an “A” safety grade from Leapfrog increased from 25% in spring 2022 to 32.6% in fall 2022.
The state rose from 30th overall to 18th place in the rankings.
The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety, and transparency in the U.S. health system, compiles the safety grades. A panel of patient safety experts selected 22-metrics of patient safety and weighs them based on evidence, opportunity for improvement and impact.
Half of the score relates to the environment in which patients receive care and how often a hospital gives patients recommended treatment for a medical condition or procedure. Examples of these measures include progress toward using a computerized physician order entry to reduce medication ordering errors, use of intensivists in intensive care units, and hand hygiene practices. The other half of the score relates to what happens to patients while they receive care. Examples of these outcome measures include hospital-acquired conditions and healthcare-associated infections.
If hospitals don’t have enough safety data available, they don’t receive a grade. Federal hospitals, critical access hospitals, specialty hospitals, long-term care and rehabilitation facilities, free-standing children’s hospitals and outpatient surgery centers don’t receive grades.
Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Buffalo Hospital, Hutchinson Health Hospital, Lake Region Healthcare, Lakeview Hospital, M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital, Methodist Hospital, Olmsted Medical Center and Owatonna Hospital received an “A” in the fall ranking, as did each Mayo Clinic Health System and Mayo Clinic Hospital.
Regions Hospital in St. Paul was one of the eight hospitals that received a “B” in the report. More than 20 other hospitals in Minnesota received “C” or “D” grades.
Nationally, 30% of hospitals received an “A,” 28% received a “B,” 36% received a “C,” 6% received a “D,” and 1% received an “F,” the nonprofit said. Leapfrog’s analysis has found that over the past decade, some medical events that should never happen, such as falls and trauma and incidents of objects unintentionally left in a body after surgery, have decreased by about 25%. Before the pandemic, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, decreased by 22%; central line-associated bloodstream infection, or CLABSI, decreased by 43%; and Clostridioides difficile infection, or C. diff, decreased by 8%, the release said. These five improvements saved an estimated more than 16,000 lives in the 10 years that have passed since the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade launched, the release said.
