Southwest Georgia hospitals react to Leapfrog scores

ALBANY — The most recent Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade scores released on Monday showed that Southwest Georgia hospitals were performing at an average, or above-average, level.

Since the scores were released, officials at the hospitals have spoken out on their commitment to patient safety — and what they are doing to build on current safety efforts.

The Leapfrog Group program assigns “A,” “B,” “C,” “D” and “F” letter grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals bi-annually, serving as a measure of patient safety. Both of the Phoebe Putney Health System campuses located in Albany, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital and Phoebe North Campus, received “C” scores.

Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton and Colquitt Regional Medical Center in Moultrie received “A’s,” while Crisp Regional Hospital in Cordele and John D. Archbold Memorial Hospital in Thomasville received “C’s.”

No Georgia hospital received an “F” score. State hospitals recorded 16 “A” scores, 15 “B” scores, 35 “C” scores and six “D” scores.

“There are well over 100 quality measures that various hospital grading organizations, such as Leapfrog, use to assign performance scores (or grades) to hospitals,” said Dr. Steve Kitchen, chief medical officer for Phoebe Putney Health System. “Every quality report reflects a snapshot in time of how we performed on varying criteria. Trending data is a much better reflection of where a hospital is exceeding and where there is room for improvement, which is why Phoebe now reports (quality data) on its website and updates the information quarterly.”

Kitchen said data show Phoebe is making improvements.

“Phoebe’s data is showing improvements in five of the 13 measures reported since the last Leapfrog release in April 2016,” he said. “Because the last report was only six months ago, measures relatively remained the same overall. Identifying ways to improve care at Phoebe is continuous. Even if we reached our ultimate goal of zero infections, our commitment to identifying ways to improve would remain steadfast.

“In addition to participating in nationally recognized quality improvement initiatives, we have also initiated a performance improvement team to look at all aspects of care from symptom assessment on admission to room cleaning on discharge. In Leapfrog’s own words (in March), ‘The good news is that a record number of hospitals make their infection rates public, which shows commendable transparency and candor within the hospital industry.’”

Colquitt Regional has received several top scores from Leapfrog, which officials from the hospital said is reflective of the standard of care its patient base has come to expect.

“Patient safety is our No. 1 priority,” said Colquitt Regional CEO Jim Matney. “Having an outside group evaluate the health outcomes of our patients and rank us among the safest 16 hospitals in the state of Georgia is outstanding. This is the fifth consecutive ‘A’ we have received from the Leapfrog Group.

“Our patients have come to expect exceptional care from our physicians and staff, and we are certainly proud to have earned this top grade.”

Tift Regional officials said employees learned of the hospital’s top score at the daily patient safety check-in on Monday. Officials said the check-in is meant to serve as a huddle for managers to provide a brief roll call report on patients while discussing safety events and risks.

“This honor reflects the commitment of our physicians, nurses, therapists, technicians and support staff to provide safe, quality care,” Dr. William Guest, senior vice president and chief medical officer at Tift Regional Health System, said in a statement. “We couldn’t do it without a team effort.

“Our goal is to prevent harm within the hospital. Our staff remains dedicated to fostering a safe, compassionate environment of care.”

Leigh Bailey, project coordinator at Crisp Regional, said the hospital has recently been realigning some of its resources. There was some data it was not able to report on, but there is an intention to more actively participate in the future, she said.

“We respect Leapfrog but were not able to robustly participate, but that is something we are looking forward to in the future,” Bailey said.

Archbold officials said that, even though Leapfrog did not give their facility a top score, it has still made great strides toward patient safety.

“Our team carefully monitors our internal quality data, as well as what is publicly reported by rating systems like Leapfrog, to help identify areas we can improve,” said Archbold President and CEO Perry Mustian. “Quality is one of our core values, and an area we focus on every day. There are many hospital rating systems, including Leapfrog, that help people understand and compare how hospitals perform on different quality measures. Because each public rating system uses different data sources, scoring methods and standards for ratings, the overall assessments of hospital performance differ.

“High-quality, patient-focused care is a top priority at Archbold. That’s why Archbold Memorial Hospital and the hospitals in our health system continue to be recognized nationally and locally, winning awards for quality care and patient safety. Our standards and expectations are very high, and we’ve been recognized for these attributes for over 90 years.”

Of the 2,633 hospitals evaluated nationally, 844 earned “A’s,” 658 earned “B’s,” 954 earned “C’s,” 157 earned “D’s” and 20 earned “F’s.”

Leapfrog officials said the grades use national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Leapfrog Hospital Survey, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and American Hospital Association’s annual survey and Health Information Technology Supplement.

These performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance.

Officials from Leapfrog said the Safety Grade includes 30 measures, all currently in use by national measurement and reporting programs. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade methodology has been peer-reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.

Leapfrog works under the guidance of a seven-member Blue Ribbon Expert Panel to select appropriate measures and develop a scoring methodology, officials said.

For more information about the safety grades, as well as individual hospital grades and state rankings, visit hospitalsafetygrade.org.