Highland Park Hospital Earns a 'C' in Safety From Health-Care Group

HIGHLAND PARK, IL―Highland Park Hospital received a "C" grade for safety from a national health care nonprofit group.

RELATED: Check Out Highland Park Hospital's Full Evaluation

The Leapfrog Group, an organization of employers and health-care providers, released its Spring 2016 hospital safety rankings Monday. Hospitals are graded from A through F based on several factors, such as medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections, to determine a patient's risk of further harm if they visited that facility.

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.

Highland Park, which is part of NorthShore University HealthSystem, received its middling grade because it declined to report information in a variety of evaluation categories. Those included the following:

• staff accurately record patient medications
• handwashing
• staff works together to prevent errors
• training to improve safety
• enough qualified nurses
• track and reduce risks to patients

RELATED: Check Out Leapfrog's Complete State Safety Rankings

According to its evaluation, Highland Park excelled in the categories dealing with preventing infections and avoiding surgical problems.

The C grade is drop from the previous year, when the hospital earned B's in the fall and spring evaluations. From the spring of 2013 to the spring of 2014, Highland Park Hospital was awarded A's. The hospital received a C in the fall of 2014.

Overall, Illinois ranked 15th in the nation, according to Leapfrog. The group evaluated 115 hospitals in the state and 50 of them, 43.5 percent, earned an A.

Other hospitals in the area earned the following grades (hospitals in bold italics earned A's):

• Advocate Condell Medical Center, Libertyville: A
• Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, Barrington: B
• Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge: A
• AMITA Health Alexian Brothers Medical Center, Elk Grove Village: A
• AMITA Health St. Alexius Medical Center, Hoffman Estates: A
• Loyola Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, Melrose Park: A
• NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston: C
• NorthShore University HealthSystem, Glenbrook Hospital, Glenview: C
• NorthShore University HealhSystem, Skokie: C
• Northwest Community Hospital, Arlington Heights: A
• Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, Lake Forest: C

Patch editor By Marc Torrence contributed to this report.

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