Kaiser Permanente Hospitals on the A-List When it Comes to Patient Safety

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Oct 29, 2013, 06:01 ET

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Kaiser Permanente reached an important milestone this week with the announcement that all Kaiser Permanente medical centers (pdf) included in The Leapfrog Group's semiannual Hospital Safety Score report received an "A" grade.

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Thirty-six of Kaiser Permanente's 38 medical centers were included in the report — the other two were not graded due to insufficient data. In the previous Leapfrog Hospital Safety Score report, released six months ago, 32 Kaiser Permanente hospitals received an "A" grade, two received a "B" and three were not given a grade due to insufficient data.

While 100 percent of Kaiser Permanente's medical centers included in the report received an "A" grade, the majority of the nation's hospitals, notably those in California, did not fare nearly as well. Consider:

Of the 2,503 non-Kaiser Permanente hospitals in the nation that were included in the report, only 31 percent (777) received an "A" grade.
In California, it was only slightly better. Among the 221 non-Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California, only 33 percent (74) received an "A" grade.
In other words, of the 108 California hospitals to receive an "A" grade in California, Kaiser Permanente accounted for 31 percent (34) of them.

"This recognition of our focus on patient safety is thanks to the evidence-based care and personalized service provided by our physicians, nurses, clinicians and care teams," said Bernard J. Tyson, chief executive officer of Kaiser Permanente. "Our continued focus on patient safety promotes proactive prevention of illness, early detection of disease and better treatment of chronic conditions."

The Leapfrog Group, a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage, created the Hospital Safety Score to help consumers decide which hospitals to go to and which to avoid. The report card assigns an A, B, C, D or F letter grade to hospitals based on 28 variables, including rates of infections, medication mix-ups and health care-acquired injuries. It uses data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the American Hospital Association and its own Leapfrog survey.

"The physicians, nurses and staff of Kaiser Permanente not only collaboratively deliver outstanding quality care and service, but they also deliver the safest hospital care anywhere," said Amy Compton-Phillips, MD, associate executive director for Quality at The Permanente Federation, the national umbrella organization of 17,000 physicians who provide care to Kaiser Permanente's 9.1 million members. "Our superior ratings in this report reflect Kaiser Permanente's dedication to providing compassionate, coordinated, affordable health care to our members and improving the health of our members and communities we serve."

The complete list of Leapfrog Hospital Safety Scores can be found at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.

Kaiser Permanente operates 38 hospitals. In this new report, based primarily on 2012 data, two Kaiser Permanente hospitals, Roseville Medical Center (Calif.) and Westside Medical Center (Hillsboro, Ore.), were not included in the report due to insufficient data. The data that Leapfrog used to compile a grade was during the period when Roseville was splitting from its combined license with Kaiser Permanente Sacramento Medical Center. Westside Medical Center, which opened this past summer, did not have enough data to receive a score.

The 2013 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Report follows several other recent honors received by Kaiser Permanente:

Kaiser Permanente's Medicare plans in California received a 5-star rating for 2014, the only health plan in the state to get the top rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It was the second straight year Kaiser Permanente in California has received 5 stars.
Kaiser Permanente has the top 5 Medicare health plans in the nation, out of more than 400 plans, according the National Committee for Quality Assurance's 2013 Health Plan Ratings.
Ten Kaiser Permanente hospitals were listed in U.S. News & World Report's 2013 "Best Hospitals" rankings.

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.

About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 9.1 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: kp.org/share.

CONTACT: Mark Camps, Kaiser Permanente, 510-625-5624

SOURCE Kaiser Permanente