Christiana Care Health System Earns "A" for Patient Safety

WILMINGTON, Del., June 11, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Christiana Care Health System has received a grade of "A" for patient safety in a first-ever report card on safety in the nation's hospitals.

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Hospitals nationwide received Hospital Safety Scores of A, B, C, D, or F based on infections, injuries and medical and medication errors in a June 6 report released by The Leapfrog Group, an independent, national not-for-profit organization of employer purchasers of health care and the nation's leading experts on patient safety.

Of the 2,652 general hospitals issued a safety score, 729, including Christiana Care, earned an "A," 679 earned a "B," and 1,243 earned a "C" or below.

"To be included among the select group of hospitals that received an 'A' for patient safety is a tribute to all our doctors, nurses and front-line staff who are transforming our care – serving our neighbors as respectful, expert, caring partners," said Robert Laskowski, M.D., Christiana Care president and CEO.

"It's The Leapfrog Group's goal to give patients the information they need and deserve before even entering a hospital," said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. "We congratulate the hospitals that earned an 'A' and we look forward to the day when all hospitals in the U.S. will earn the highest scores for putting patient safety first."

Calculated under the guidance of a nine-member Blue Ribbon Panel of patient safety experts, the Hospital Safety Score uses measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital's overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

Besides The Leapfrog Group, the 26 measures come from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The measures include:

• Computerized Physician Order Entry
• Surgical Infection Prevention
• Falls and Trauma
• Central Line Associated Bloodstream Infection
• Post-Operative Pulmonary Embolism/Deep Vein Thrombosis

For more information on Christiana Care, visit www.christianacare.org/whoweare.

SOURCE Christiana Care Health System