CMC Gets an A in Patient Safety

recently earned an A in hospital safety, as measured by The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits.

The Hospital Safety Score was calculated under the guidance of The Leapfrog Group’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel using publicly available data on patient injuries, medical and medication errors, and infections. U.S. hospitals were assigned an A, B, C, D or F for their safety.

“We are proud that our quality and safety efforts have been recognized and scored at the highest possible level,” CMC President and CEO Keith Sandlin said in a press release. “Our team of physicians and healthcare professionals has developed a patients-first culture and safety is certainly one of our top priorities.”

According to Leapfrog, of the 2,652 general hospitals issued a Hospital Safety Score, 729 earned an A, 679 earned a B, and 1,243 earned a C or below. Only 17 percent of the hospitals in Georgia received an A.

“It’s The Leapfrog Group’s goal to give patients the information they need and deserve before even entering a hospital,” Leapfrog President and CEO Leah said in the release. “We congratulate the hospitals that earned an A and we look forward to the day when all hospitals in the U.S. will earn the highest scores for putting patient safety first.”

To see Cartersville Medical Center’s scores as they compare nationally and locally, visit www.hospitalsafetyscore.org, the Hospital Safety Score website, which also provides information on how the public can protect themselves and loved ones during a hospital stay.

Calculated under the guidance of The Leapfrog Group’s nine-member Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 26 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries and medical and medication errors.

The panel includes: John Birkmeyer (University of Michigan), Ashish Jha (Harvard University), Lucian Leape (Harvard University), Arnold Millstein (Stanford University), Peter Pronovost (Johns Hopkins University), Patrick Romano (University of California, Davis), Sara Singer (Harvard University), Tim Vogus (Vanderbilt University), and Robert Wachter (University of California, San Francisco).