Once again, some hospitals are crowing and others are crying foul with the Leapfrog Group's latest round of safety scores.
The rating program, launched in June 2012, assigns hospitals a letter grade based on publicly available safety data from the CMS' Hospital Compare, the American Hospital Association and the Leapfrog Group's annual hospital survey.
The employer-backed safety group says the grades serve as an easy-to-use tool for patients to use when making decisions about where to seek care and as a driver to boost hospital performance. But the safety-scoring program has drawn intense criticism from hospitals, many of which argue the grades don't fairly represent the quality of care their organizations deliver.
This latest update assigned scores to 2,539 hospitals, up slightly from the 2,514 that received grades in the last update. Of those, 813 received an A, 661 received a B, 893 received a C, 150 received a D and 22 received an F.
“I have to admit my disappointment, especially because we know there have been some extraordinary efforts at improving safety,” said Leah Binder, Leapfrog's president and CEO, citing initiatives such as HHS' $1 billion Partnership for Patients. “We'll keep at it, though.”
Still, a few hospitals—3.5% of those scored in the latest update—saw their grades jump by two or more levels since May. Brookwood Medical Center, Birmingham, Ala., for instance, received an A, up from a C in May. Kishwaukee Community Hospital, DeKalb, Ill., saw its grade improve from a D in May to a B in this latest update. “It can be done,” Binder said. “We just want more than 3.5% to do it.”
Binder referred to a September study in the Journal of Patient Safety estimating that the number of annual deaths attributable to preventable medical harm could be as high as 440,000—far higher than the often-cited 98,000 figure from the Institute of Medicine's landmark To Err is Human report. “We are burying a population the size of Miami every year from medical errors that can be prevented,” she said.
Hospitals blessed with As, as in previous iterations of the scores—the last was in May—issued news releases celebrating the achievement. But the methodology remains controversial among hospital leaders.
Follow Maureen McKinney on Twitter: @MHMMcKinney
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