All ten acute care hospital campuses in the Steward Health Care System (Steward) were awarded an “A” grade in the Fall 2014 update to the Hospital Safety Score, which rates how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections. The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading experts on patient safety and is administered by The Leapfrog Group (Leapfrog), an independent industry watchdog. The first and only hospital safety rating to be analyzed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Patient Safety, the Score is designed to give the public information they can use to protect themselves and their families.
“We are extraordinarily proud that all Steward hospitals have achieved a Leapfrog A Safety Score for the third cycle in a row,” said Justine Carr, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Steward. “Safety of our patients is fundamental to our mission of clinical excellence.”
In the past four years, Steward has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new services, new physicians, significant infrastructure improvements and new clinical technology to improve the quality of care and patient experience in our hospitals.
“Patient safety needs to be a 24-7 priority for hospitals, as errors and infections are all too common and often deadly,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which administers the Hospital Safety Score. “We commend the ‘A’ hospitals, including the Steward system, for helping us to raise the standards of health care nationwide, and demonstrating that they’ve made the well-being of patients a top priority.”
Acute care hospitals in the Steward Health Care System that received an “A” include: Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, Holy Family Hospital at Merrimack Valley in Haverhill, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Norwood Hospital, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Quincy Medical Center. Leapfrog does not evaluate hospitals that specialize in long-term acute care, such as New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton.
Calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,500 general U.S. hospitals were assigned scores this Fall.
About Steward Health Care
Steward Health Care is the largest fully integrated community care organization and community hospital network in New England. Headquartered in Boston, Steward is the third largest employer in MA with more than 17,000 employees serving more than one million patients annually in more than 150 communities. Hospitals in the system include Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Norwood Hospital, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, Merrimack Valley Hospital in Haverhill, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Quincy Medical Center and New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton. Other Steward Health Care entities include Steward Medical Group and Steward Home Care. Further information is available at www.steward.org.
About The Leapfrog Group
The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org) is a national nonprofit organization using the collective leverage of large purchasers of health care to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality and affordability of health care for Americans. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey allows purchasers to structure their contracts and purchasing to reward the highest performing hospitals. The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 with support from the Business Roundtable and national funders and is now independently operated with support from its purchaser and other members.