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Leapfrog Measures Safety
You have to be intrigued by a group that calls themselves "Leapfrog!" The Leapfrog Group is an organization that focuses on promoting health care quality and safety. They have created an assessment to determine the safety readiness of hospitals across the country. According to a recent press release, "Fifty-nine U.S. hospitals have been named to the first Leapfrog Top Hospitals list, based on ... results from the Leapfrog Hospital Quality and Safety Survey, a national rating system that offers a broad assessment of a hospital's quality and safety. The survey results from over 1,200 hospitals ... reveal significant findings ..."
Part of the survey has revealed that 9 out of 10 hospitals have implemented procedures to avoid wrong site surgeries. In our language, that means they assure operating on the right part of the body! Hmmm, do you wonder what the rest of the hospitals are doing?
The Leapfrog Group publishes and updates hospital data regularly, and it can be viewed by consumers at no charge on their website, www.leapfroggroup.org.
See if your hospital has made the top fifty-nine list: Leapfrog_Top_Hospitals_2006_list.pdf
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Comments
Pleased that Seattle's Swedish Medical Center & Virginia Mason Medical Center MADE it [keeping parents alive near Capitol Hill].
Posted by seanfrog at October 30, 2006 11:29 AM
Hi Val – thanks for raising healthcare.
I wrote recently about the newly announced ‘scores’ ‘ratings’ for the 570 healthcare organisations within the National Health Service over here in the UK – this is what I said.
‘Today’s report about the performance of the 570 NHS organisations tells us that only 2 (0.003%) of them have achieved the standard of ‘excellence’ in both finance and quality. Many factors are taken into account before arriving at the assessment of performance of NHS Trusts and as always, there is not a ‘one bullet solution’ to the many problems of the NHS. I worked for 35 years as a manager in the NHS until two years and I suggest that the biggest single problem is leadership that has its priorities wrong. The dedication and hard work of staff in the NHS is legendary and in order to motivate those people top class leadership is required. Sad to say in my experience the leadership is usually more concerned about meeting targets and balancing budgets than the welfare of their staff and therein is the problem.’
Posted by Trevor Gay at October 30, 2006 2:11 PM
Val Willis,
Thanks for the link to Leapfrog.
Something to bookmark. Hope I'll
never need it, but I'm sure I will
John
CRO, IUUGBI (Independent, Unaffiliated, and Unassociated Grameen Boosters of the Internet.)
P.S. Do you know why I haven't seen Tom posting at the Motley Fool Foolanthropy borad to encourage Foolanthropists to make the Grameen Foundation one of this year's charities?
Posted by ShakespearesFool at October 30, 2006 3:52 PM
After I saw this today, I received my USNews&WorldReport with its cover story on Best Health Care plans. So, after you look up your hospital, you can go here and find your health insurance, too:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-health-insurance/topplans.htm
Posted by cathy mosca at October 30, 2006 5:29 PM
Yes, it's a credible list of 50. A very well-known hospital isn't on the list, and shouldn't be based on my personal experience. Excellent! Perhaps senior management there will realize that big-name surgeons and expensive technology aren't everything ....
Posted by Mike L at October 30, 2006 6:51 PM