Stanford Health Care Receives an ‘A’ for Patient Safety for the Spring 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade

Stanford Health Care was awarded an ‘A’ from The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade. The designation recognizes SHC’s efforts in protecting patients from harm and providing safer health care. The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization committed to improving health care quality and safety for consumers and purchasers. The Safety Grade assigns an ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘F’ grade to hospitals across the country based on their performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care.

“Earning an ‘A’ grade from The Leapfrog Group is a tremendous accomplishment,” said David Entwistle, president and CEO of Stanford Health Care. “It validates the efforts of so many individuals, from across our institution, who have come together to continuously improve the performance of our care—always putting the patient first. We should take great pride in this latest milestone, because it speaks volumes about our culture and the importance we place on providing quality care. My sincere thanks go out to all those who made this possible.”

Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and other supplemental data sources to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year.

Taken together, those performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

“We know, from tracking our own data, that our quality and patient safety measures have continued to improve,” said Karen Frush, MD, Chief Quality Officer. “The “A” grade in Leapfrog is a testament to the talented and committed teams here at Stanford Health Care.  Our teams provide amazing care to our patients and their families. This grade reflects that level of care and compassion that we strive to provide every day,” she said.

Some of SHC’s quality measures and practices that helped garner the “A” grade include: outstanding cross-functional effort from physicians, laboratory, nursing, pharmacy, IT, and quality in the Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) test; and, improvement in infection (specifically CLABSI, CAUTI, and C.Diff) and air embolism rates due to the sustained efforts and improvement projects from nursing and infection prevention.

“To be recognized nationally as an ‘A’ hospital is an accomplishment the whole community should take pride in,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “Hospitals that earn an ‘A’ grade are making it a priority to protect patients from preventable medical harm and error. We congratulate hospital leaders, board members, staff, volunteers and clinicians who work so hard to earn this A.”

Stanford was awarded an ‘A’ grade today, when Leapfrog announced grades for the spring 2019 update. To see Stanford Health Care’s full grade details, 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 Stanford Health Care

Stanford Health Care seeks to heal humanity through science and compassion, one patient at a time, through its commitment to care, education, and discovery. Stanford Health Care delivers clinical innovation across its inpatient services, specialty health centers, physician offices, virtual care offerings and health plan programs.

Stanford Health Care is part of Stanford Medicine, a leading academic health system that includes the Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. Stanford Medicine is renowned for breakthroughs in treating cancer, heart disease, brain disorders, and surgical and medical conditions.