San Diego-Area Hospitals Rated for Patient Safety

The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by employers and health-care providers, announced its Spring 2016 hospital safety rankings Monday, a measure of how safe a hospital is for patients.

Leapfrog also conducted an analysis with researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine's Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. They estimated that 206,021 avoidable deaths occur each year in U.S. hospitals.

Hospitals were given a letter grade from A through F based on several factors. Of the 2,571 hospitals studied nationwide, 798 earned an A, 639 earned a B, 957 earned a C, 162 earned a D and 15 earned an F.

Locally, Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa earned a B, while Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in San Diego was given a C.

Among other San Diego-area hospitals, Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla and UC San Diego La Jolla - Thornton Hospital/Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center earned A grades; Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla got a B; Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego was given a C; Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego got a B; Kaiser Permanente San Diego Medical Center brought home an A; Paradise Valley Hospital in National City got a C; UC San Diego Hillcrest - Hillcrest Medical Center was given an A; Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center got a C; and Scripps Mercy Hospital of Chula Vista was given a B.

In North County, Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside earned an A grade, while Palomar Medical Center in Escondido and Pomerado Hospital in Poway both were given C grades. Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas got a B.

At the state level, California came in at No. 37 on Leapfrog's state safety rankings list. Vermont was ranked No. 1, with Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Minnesota rounding out the list's top five.

State rankings were based on a percentage of state hospitals receiving an A grade.

• See the full list of hospital safety scores here.

Leapfrog looked at medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections to determine the grades. The goal was to determine a patient's risk of further injury or infection if they visited a certain hospital.

Hospitals given a B rating by Leapfrog had a 9 percent higher risk of avoidable death than A hospitals. That number jumps to 35 percent in C hospitals and 50 percent higher in D and F hospitals.

The analysis estimates that 33,459 lives could be saved if every hospital improved their safety record to A standards. Still, the study estimates 43,903 avoidable deaths in A hospitals each year.

Patch has reached out to Leapfrog for more information, and we'll let you know when we hear back.

Leapfrog releases its rankings twice a year.

“It is time for every hospital in America to put patient safety at the top of their priority list, because tens of thousands of lives are stake,” Leapfrog President Leah Binder said in a press release. “The Hospital Safety Score alerts consumers to the dangers, but as this analysis shows, even A hospitals are not perfectly safe.”

By Marc Torrence (Patch National Staff)

Photo: Patch file photo/Maggie Avants