DC Hospital Safety Grades Released For 2017

WASHINGTON, DC — How safe are DC's hospitals? New grades released Wednesday by The Leapfrog Group will tell you just that. The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by employers and healthcare providers, ranked 7 DC hospitals as part of its spring 2017 safety grades.

The hospitals were given a letter grade from A through F based on several factors. Of the 7 DC hospitals that were graded, none of them received an A. None received an F, but there were three that were graded a D. To come up with the grades, Leapfrog looks at medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The goal is to determine what a patient's risk of further injury or infection is if they visit a certain hospital. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

According to the organization, more than 1,000 Americans die each day from preventable hospital errors. 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.

At the state level, Maine was ranked No. 1. Hawaii, Oregon, Wisconsin and Idaho rounded out the top five.

Since Leapfrog began its ratings in 2012, the organization says there have been significant strides in improving patient safety, such as a 21 percent decrease in hospital acquired conditions, increased use of computerized physician order entry systems, and millions of averted patient harms. More than 1,000 people a day are estimated to die from preventable errors, making this the third leading cause of death in America.

“When we launched the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade in 2012, our goal was to alert consumers to the hazards involved in a hospital stay and help them choose the safest option. We also hoped to galvanize hospitals to make safety the first priority day in and day out,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog.
Here are the grades the Georgia hospitals received. (Visit the full list to learn more about individual rankings.)

Here are the grades the DC hospitals received:

A

• None

B

• MedStar Georgetown University Hospital
• Sibley Memorial Hospital

C

• George Washington University Hospital
• United Medical Center

D

• Providence Hospital of Washington
• MedStar Washington Hospital Center
• Howard University Hospital

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