Leapfrog Group has released its 2016 hospital safety rankings.
The ranking looks at a number of factors to determine how good a hospital is, including specially trained doctors care for ICU patients, steps taken to avoid harm, never events management, doctors ordering medications through a computer and more.
Almost half of all U.S. hospitals shared their data voluntarily for Leapfrog Group’s annual survey. Hospitals with four green bars have met the most rigorous standard of the organization’s health care quality experts.
Mistakes that take place in hospitals, such as safety breakdowns, accidents and infections lead to over 200,000 deaths in the U.S. every year, making these errors the third-leading cause of death in the country.
Hospitals get a rating of A, B, C, D and F, and the ranking determined that out of 2,633 hospitals, the most common rating is a “C,” which 954 hospitals attained. Meanwhile, 844 hospitals got an “A,” 658 earned a “B,” 157 got a “D,” and 20 earned an “F.”
As far as state-by-state reports go, North Carolina climbed from 19th in the 2014 rankings to fifth in the fall of 2017, while Idaho made the impressive surge of moving from 45th in the spring of 2013 to second in the fall of 2016.
Hawaii topped the rankings, while only four states had no “A” hospitals, including Alska, Delaware, North Dakota and Washington, D.C.
“In the fast-changing healthcare landscape, patients should be aware that hospitals are not all equally competent at protecting them from injuries and infections,” stated Leapfrog President and CEO Leah Binder.
