Hospital gets "A" for safety

Advocate South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest, Ill. recently was honored with an “A” Hospital Safety ScoreSM by The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits.  The Safety Score is designed to rate how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections.

This is the fifth consecutive reporting period that Advocate South Suburban Hospital has earned an “A” Safety Score. To see Advocate South Suburban Hospital scores as they compare nationally and locally, visit www.hospitalsafetyscore.org, the Hospital Safety Score website, which also provides information on how the public can protect themselves and loved ones during a hospital stay.

The Hospital Safety Score – A, B, C, D, or F – is calculated using publicly available data on patient injuries, medical and medication errors, and infections.  The Hospital Safety Score grades are based on each hospital’s levels of infections, injuries and medical and medication errors.

The Hospital Safety Score is the first and only hospital safety rating to be peer-reviewed in the Journal of Patient Safety, the score is free to the public and designed to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.

“Our overriding priority is making our hospital a safe environment for our patients to heal,” said Richard Multack, D.O., vice president of medical management at Advocate South Suburban Hospital.  “The ‘A’ rating underlines the commitment by each and every one of our physicians, nurses and other associates to making and keeping people well.”

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. The Hospital Safety Score highlights the country’s safest hospitals, such as Advocate South Suburban Hospital, and emphasizes the critical nature of continued focus on patient safety.

The Safety Scores are based on performance measures from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  These measures produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

To see Advocate South Suburban Hospital scores as they compare nationally and locally, visitwww.hospitalsafetyscore.org, the Hospital Safety Score website, which also provides information on how the public can protect themselves and loved ones during a hospital stay.

The Safety Scores are based on performance measures from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  These measures produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.