Illinois Hospitals Receive A, B, C, D or F Scores for Patient Safety
Only 45% of Chicagoland hospitals get an “A”
Media Consultant: Cary Conway
Chicago - Students aren’t the only people worried about As and Bs: hospitals are receiving grades too. The Hospital Safety Score is being released today by The Leapfrog Group, an independent, national not-for-profit organization of employer purchasers of 
health care and the nation’s leading experts on patient safety. The Chicago-based Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH), the Leapfrog Group’s Illinois Regional Rollout leader indicated that every acute care hospital in Chicago and the state of Illinois will receive an A, B, C, D, or F score. These grades are based on each hospital's levels of infections, injuries and medical and medication errors.
Scores were assigned to 114 hospitals in Illinois out of the 177 that operate in the state, with 51 receiving an A, the highest score. For this first release of scores, only those hospitals receiving an A, B or C grade will be identified. The Hospital Safety Score reports only on general, not on specialized hospitals, such as critical access or children’s hospitals.
“We are pleased to see the large number of “A” rated hospitals in Chicago and Illinois,” said Larry Boress, MBGH president and CEO. “However, too many hospitals are below that level and we need consumers, physicians, hospital boards, health plans and purchasers to be aware of how their hospitals have scored and urge those not receiving an “A” to work toward that level of safety.”
Every day in the U.S., more than 400 people die because of a hospital injury, infection, or error – the equivalent of a major jetliner crashing at Chicago O’Hare International Airport daily. For the first time, the Hospital Safety Score will highlight the country’s safest hospitals and shed a light on the poor performance of other institutions.
“It’s our goal to hold hospitals accountable for how safe they are and give patients the information they need and deserve before even entering a hospital,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which administers the Hospital Safety Score.
Boress added, “We believe the people in Chicago and Illinois will find this information very valuable. We will use the Hospital Safety Score in our community to work with our employers and other purchaser members on contracting, value-based purchasing, benefits design, and employee educational programs to spur safety improvements in our hospitals.”
Calculated under the guidance of a nine-member Blue Ribbon Panel of patient safety experts, the Hospital Safety Score uses 26 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.
There is no score for hospitals that do not report enough data publicly, including hospitals in the state of Maryland and territories of Guam and Puerto Rico which were exempted by the federal government from reporting. Many rural general hospitals did not report enough data to obtain a score. “All hospitals should report data on their safety, because the public deserves to know how they are performing,” said Binder. “That’s a top priority issue for The Leapfrog Group’s legislative agenda.”
For more information on the Hospital Safety Score, or to find out the score of your local hospital, visit www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.
About the Midwest Business Group on Health
Celebrating more than 30 years of advancing value in health care and health benefits management, the non-profit Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH) is one of the nation's leading business groups of private and public employers. MBGH's more than 100 members represent over 3 million lives, spending more than $3 billion on health care benefits annually. MBGH member benefits include educational workshops for health benefits management, networking opportunities, research, demonstration projects and community initiatives. MBGH is a founding member of the National Business Coalition on Health. www.mbgh.org
About The Leapfrog Group
The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org) is a national organization using the collective leverage of large purchasers of health care to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality, and affordability of health care for Americans. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey allows purchasers to structure their contracts and purchasing to reward the highest performing hospitals. The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 by the Business Roundtable and is now independently operated with support from its purchaser and other members.