Hospital Safety Grades: How Do Hospitals Near Rancho Santa Margarita Stack Up?

By MARC TORRENCE (Patch National Staff)

When it comes to hospital patient safety, Rancho Santa Margarita residents have mediocre options, according to the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by employers and health-care providers. Leapfrog gave surrounding hospitals B and C grades in patient safety Monday.

The Leapfrog Group, 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.

Around Rancho Santa Margarita, Saddleback Memorial Medical Center of Laguna Hills and Saddleback Memorial Medical Center of San Clemente each earned a B grade while Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center and Mission Hospital Laguna Beach each got C grades. Around Orange County, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian earned an A grade along with UCI Medical Center in Irvine, Hoag Hospital Irvine, and Kaiser Foundation Hospital, Orange County-Irvine, Los Alamitos Medical Center and Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center.

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

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.”

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