Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital (VUAH) has been awarded a spring 2018 patient safety grade of “A” from the Leapfrog Group, 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 27 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, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Hospital Association’s Annual Survey and Health Information Technology Supplement.
To determine a safety grade Leapfrog not only looks at outcome measures but also process measures such as staff responsiveness and structural measures such as the overall hospital environment and how thoroughly technology is embedded into the delivery of care.
“Top scores by Leapfrog are not achieved through a popularity contest but are awarded based on an institution’s steadfast commitment to a broad continuum of performance outcomes that are meaningful to patients and their families. I want to congratulate everyone for earning the top grade of ‘A’ this spring,” said C. Wright Pinson, MBA, MD, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Health System Officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
In the recent survey, more than 2,500 hospitals across the nation were assigned grades of A, B, C, D or F for safety, and only 30 percent received an “A.” The safety score for each hospital can be found here.
The Leapfrog Group also publishes a Top Hospitals list each year in late November. Together, Leapfrog members provide health benefits to more than 37 million Americans in all 50 states.
