SMYRNA, Tenn. – TriStar StoneCrest Center was one of 750 hospitals nationwide awarded an "A" for its efforts in protecting patients from harm and meeting the highest safety standards in the U.S., according to The Leapfrog Group, an organization aiming to improve healthcare quality and safety for consumers and purchasers, recently released the new Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades.
The Safety Grade assigns an A, B, C, D or F grade to hospitals based on their performance in preventing medical errors, infections and other harms among patients in their care.
“We are proud to be recognized by The Leapfrog Group for exceeding safety standards results for our patients,” said Lou Caputo, chief executive officer at TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center. “It is a validation that our staff continually strives to support our mission of providing high-quality patient care while always focusing on patient’s safety.”
Developed under the guidance of an Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to approximately 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. It is peer reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public.
TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center announced today that it is a recipient of the Healthgrades 2019 Patient Safety Excellence AwardTM. This distinction places TriStar StoneCrest among the top 5% of all short-term acute care hospitals reporting patient safety data as evaluated by Healthgrades, the leading online resource for information about physicians and hospitals.
During the study period (2015 to 2017), Healthgrades 2019 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient hospitals demonstrated excellent performance in safety provided for patients in the Medicare population, as measured by objective outcomes (risk-adjusted patient safety indicator rates) for 14 patient safety indicators defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Healthgrades also gave top marks
Healthgrades found that patients treated in hospitals receiving the Patient Safety Excellence Award were, as compared to patients at non-recipients hospitals, on average*:
• 55.9% less likely to experience an accidental cut, puncture, perforation or hemorrhage during medical care.
• 50.9% less likely to experience a collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery in or around the chest.
• 64.4% less likely to experience pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital.
• 57% less likely to experience catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at the hospital.
In addition, if all hospitals in the country performed at the level of award recipients for each of the 14 Patient Safety Indicators, 127,667 patient safety events could have been avoided.*
“Providing safe, high-quality care to our community is our highest priority,” said Lou Caputo, chief executive officer at TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center. “This award reflects our commitment to quality and patient safety, and we applaud the efforts of our physicians, nurses, support staff and volunteers who go above and beyond each day to ensure our patients are cared for in a safe, healing environment.”
“We are proud to recognize the recipients of the 2019 Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award, which shines a spotlight on the hospitals that are preventing the occurrence of serious, potentially avoidable complications, for patients during their hospital stay,” said Brad Bowman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Healthgrades. “We applaud these hospitals and their commitment to providing the best possible care for every patient.”
View Healthgrades hospital quality methodologies.
*Statistics are calculated from Healthgrades Patient Safety Ratings and Excellence Award methodology which is based primarily on AHRQ technical specifications (Version 5e and 2018) to MedPAR data for years 2015 through 2017 and represent 3-year estimates for Medicare patients only.