Where Leapfrog saw improved safety scores
This year's safety grades were buoyed by hospitals' efforts to enhance patients' care experiences and by facilities' performance on various safety measures returning to prepandemic levels.
“Hospitals never want to be in a position again where they're putting patients last on their list of priorities,” said Leapfrog Group President and CEO Leah Binder. “Many felt they had to do that during the pandemic.”
Hospital leaders have been more focused on patient satisfaction over the past two years, working to close gaps in patient communication through multidisciplinary rounds and more regular patient visits from clinical staff, Binder said. These efforts have paid off with higher patient experience scores across the industry.
The scores, drawn from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, factor into hospitals’ overall Leapfrog Group safety grade.
Between the late 2021 and early 2023 HCAHPS reporting periods, hospitals' average scores on communication with patients about medicines and staff responsiveness increased by 0.23 points and 0.16 points, respectively. Hospitals increased their scores for measures on nurse and doctor communication with patients and discharge information, as well.
Another bright spot for facilities this year was continued progress in reducing healthcare acquired infections.
Hospitals’ average standard infection ratio of central line-associated bloodstream infections fell by 0.17 percentage points between Leapfrog Group's fall 2023 and spring 2024 reports. Average ratios of MRSA cases and catheter-associated urinary tract infections decreased by .14 and .12 percentage points, respectively.
Now that infection control and patient experience levels have mostly returned to where they were in 2019, it’s important for hospitals to keep the momentum going and achieve even better outcomes, Binder said.
“The discipline of understanding how to create a better patient experience and a safer one is going to pay off for hospitals,” she said.
In its 2023 hospital survey, the Leapfrog Group found that more than 60% of hospitals are using safety grades in their executive compensation review. Tying performance to leaders’ pay is a good way to create a culture focused on patient safety and care quality, Binder said.
At Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital, which has received an “A” every year since the Leapfrog Group began grading hospitals in 2012, a main challenge is ensuring that the facility's newer staff are aware of all safety expectations and processes, said Dr. Kim Darey, president of the Elmhurst, Illinois, hospital.
“We make it a high priority when people are hired, whether they are housekeeping, physicians or executives, that they understand the kind of safety culture we want to have,” Darey said.
