Houston’s Fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades Released

HOUSTON – Nov. 7, 2019 – The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit representing hundreds of the nation’s most influential employers and purchasers of health care, driven in the greater Houston area by the Houston Business Coalition on Health, announced the fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades. The independent grading system assigns A, B, C, D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the US based on their ability to protect patients from avoidable errors, injuries, accidents and infections.

Texas fell out of the top 10 to the 16th spot nationally for fall 2019. In the greater Houston area 42,hospitals were graded, with 19 earning an A, 14 a B, seven a C, one a D and for the first time in more than four years one hospital earned an F.

Hospitals that earned an A:
• Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital
• HCA Houston Healthcare Conroe
• HCA Houston Healthcare West
• Houston Methodist Hospital
• Houston Methodist West Hospital
• Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital
• Memorial Hermann Southeast
• Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital
• Memorial Hermann Northeast, Humble
• Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital
• HCA Houston Healthcare Kingwood
• CHI St. Luke’s Health Memorial Livingston
• Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital in Nassau Bay
• HCA Houston Healthcare Pearland
• Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital
• CHI St. Luke’s Health The Woodlands Hospital
• Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital
• Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital
• HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake in Webster

The Houston Business Coalition on Health (HBCH), a non-profit multi-stakeholder organizationrepresents more than 85 local businesses providing health care benefits to more than 800,000 employees and their family members and is the Houston area Regional Leader for The Leapfrog Group.

“The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade offers critical patient safety information to consumers, in an easily digestible way, so that they can make informed decisions about where they seek care in the Houston area,” said Chris Skisak, PhD, HBCH executive director. “This is a valuable resource for employers to share with their employees so that they can self-navigate to the safest and highest quality hospitals. We are committed to collaborating with local hospitals and other stakeholders to ensure patients in our community are receiving the safest possible care.”

The release of this fall’s Hospital Safety Grades coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the Institute of Medicine’s (now the National Academy of Medicine) groundbreaking report, To Err Is Human, which revealed nearly 100,000 lives are lost every year due to preventable medical errors. Subsequent reports estimate that number may be twice as high.

“Twenty years after To Err Is Human, we are still devastated by tens of thousands of needless deaths every year from medical errors,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “We are seeing progress, with 45,000 fewer deaths from the hazards included in the Safety Grade. Still, much more needs to be done. Transparency is the first step.”

Binder cited an analysis earlier this year by the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality that found 45,000 fewer deaths than a 2016 analysis, based on the prevalence of safety problems in hospitals graded by The Leapfrog Group.

Developed under the guidance of a National Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.

For more information about the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, as well as individual grades and state rankings, please visit hospitalsafetygrade.org.

About The Leapfrog Group
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information
they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections.

About Houston Business Coalition on Health
The non-profit Houston Business Coalition on Health is the leading resource for Houston employers and their health services providers dedicated to providing health benefits at a sustainable cost while improving the quality and employee experience of their delivery through effective benefits design. With 85 members, HBCH represents 800,000 local and more than 2 million national employer-sponsored
lives. HBCH a member of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions. For additional information visit our website houstonbch.org and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. houstonbch.org

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