Two Valley Health hospitals, Winchester Medical Center (WMC) and Warren
Memorial Hospital (WMH), each earned an “A” grade for the
third consecutive time from The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization
committed to driving quality, safety, and transparency in the U.S. health system.
The Hospital Safety Score is a gold standard rating for patient safety,
compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading patient safety
experts and administered by The Leapfrog Group, a national, independent
nonprofit organization. The first and only hospital safety rating to be
peer-reviewed in the
Journal of Patient Safety, the Hospital Safety Score is free to the public and designed to give
consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families
when expecting a hospital stay.
Developed under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel,
the Hospital Safety Score uses 27 measures of publicly-available hospital
safety data to produce a single A, B, C, D, or F score, representing a
hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable
harm such as errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. WMC and WMH
were among 832 hospitals awarded an “A”, out of 2,632 hospitals
graded nationwide. Critical Access hospitals – federally-designated
to ensure access to care in more remote, underserved areas -- are not
graded by the Leapfrog Group. (Valley Health’s other four hospitals
are Critical Access Hospitals.)
“Our highest priority at Winchester Medical Center has always been,
and will always be, the safety of our patients,” said Grady W. (Skip)
Philips, III, Valley Health System Senior Vice President and President
of Winchester Medical Center. “We are honored to once again receive
this esteemed recognition, which demonstrates our ongoing organization-wide
commitment to fostering a culture of safety and delivering high quality care
— for every patient, every time.”
The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, offering a full analysis
of the data and methodology used in determining grades on the website.
Patients can also review their preferred hospital’s past safety
performance alongside its current grade on the Hospital Safety Score site,
allowing them to determine which local hospitals have the best track record
in patient safety and which have demonstrated consistent improvement.
“We are honored and gratified to receive such high recognition for
our continuous commitment to improving patient safety, and we share this
honor with our medical staff, nurses, clinicians and entire support team
here at Warren Memorial Hospital,” noted Floyd Heater, President
of Warren Memorial Hospital and Sr. Vice President of Valley Health’s
Southern Region.
All Valley Health hospitals practice safety initiatives such as Daily Safety
Rounds and a Daily Safety Call, which engage every department to heighten
awareness around patient safety and provide a mechanism for the organization’s
leadership and staff to learn from those delivering hands-on care at the bedside.
Forty- one of the 68 Virginia hospitals graded by Leapfrog earned “A”
grades, according to a press release from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare
Association, placing Virginia among the top five states with the highest
percentage of “A” hospitals.
To see Valley Health’s scores as they compare nationally and locally,
visit the Hospital Safety Score website at
www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.