National Hospital Safety Rankings: How Did Beth Israel Needham Do?

By Marc Torrence and Dan Libon

NEEDHAM, MA - 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.

At the local level, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital of Needham received an A grade. The hospital scored an A in the fall and spring 2015 ratings. In 2014 and 2013, they received a B in the fall and an A in the spring.

Click here to see the full assessment for Beth Israel Needham.

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 at 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.”