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Overcast Four local hospitals get ‘A’ in patient safety
Survey done by group that evaluates quality-of-care
Four Nassau County hospitals received the highest grade in a quality-of-care survey conducted by the Leapfrog Group, an organization that evaluates how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, injuries, errors and infections, while encouraging transparency and access to health care information.
The survey was created in 2001 in response to a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, which said that 98,000 Americans die annually from preventable medical errors made in hospitals. Grades are distributed based on publicly available data on a scale from A to F. More than 2,500 general hospitals nationwide received grades.
The Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, the Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola and St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn all received an A grade.
South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside received a B.
The North Shore-LIJ Health System, a group 15 hospitals across Long Island, did not fare as well. Its six hospitals in Nassau County — Valley Stream, Manhasset, Plainview, Glen Cove, New Hyde Park and Syosset — all received a grade of C.
The Long Beach Medical Center and the St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway did not receive scores, which, said Leapfrog, is due to a lack of publicly available data. Long Beach Medical Center suffered major damage from Hurricane Sandy and has not reopened since.
The Leapfrog Group, founded by a small group of large employers, said it evaluates 28 safety measures that have been identified as having potential to save patient lives. The group claims its survey is the only nationally standardized set of measures that captures hospital performance in patient safety, quality and resource utilization.
The measures include appropriate staffing, prevention of medication errors, performance in maternity care and high-risk surgeries, and prevention of hospital-acquired illnesses.
Leapfrog said it frequently updates its survey to include additional measures as healthcare education improves. Hospitals are eligible to take the survey every six months.
