Newton-Wellesley Hospital Awarded an "A" in Patient Safety

Designed to rate how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections, the latest Hospital Safety Score honored Newton-Wellesley Hospital with an “A” – its top grade in patient safety. The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading experts on patient safety and is administered by The Leapfrog Group (Leapfrog), an independent industry watchdog. 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.

“The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Score rating of “A” is an honor and recognizes the dedication and hard work of our clinical leadership and frontline staff ensuring that NWH provides high quality, patient-centered, safe care,” said Bert Thurlo-Walsh, Director, Quality and Patient Safety, Newton-Wellesley Hospital. “We are proud to receive national recognition since the inception of the program two years ago.”

Newton-Wellesley Hospital has received numerous quality and patient safety awards over the years including:  Triple Gold Performance Achievement from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association; NSQIP Recognition for Exemplary Surgical Outcomes; Commission on Cancer three-year Accreditation with Commendation from the American College of Surgeons; Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Honor Roll for Clinical Quality; Consumer’s Digest List of 50 exceptional hospitals for patient safety; BCBS of MA Blue Distinction Designation for improving health care quality; HealthGrades – Bariatric Surgery Excellence Award; and the DPH Stroke Collaborative Reaching for Excellence (SCORE) award for “Closest to Defect-Free Care.”

“Safety should come first for our families when we pick a hospital, because errors and infections are common and deadly,” said Leah Binder, president & CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which produces the Hospital Safety Score. “No hospital is perfect, but we congratulate the Board, clinicians, administration, and staff of Newton-Wellesley Hospital for achieving an “A” and showing us that you made the well-being of you patients your top priority.”  

Calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in spring 2014, with about 32-percent receiving an “A” grade. The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, and its website offers a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades.

To see how Newton-Wellesley’s score compares locally and nationally, and to access safety tips for patients and their loved ones, visit the Hospital Safety Score website at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org. Consumers can also go to www.hospitalsafetyscore.org for a free download of the Hospital Safety Score app.

Newton-Wellesley Hospital is a full system member of Partners HealthCare System, Inc. (PHCS), a nonprofit organization that includes acute care hospitals Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's/Faulkner Hospitals, The North Shore Medical Center, and specialty hospitals McLean Hospital and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, as well as Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare, and the community-based doctors and hospitals of Partners Community HealthCare, Inc.

Newton-Wellesley Hospital provides a wide range of services, including medical, surgical, obstetrical, orthopaedic, pediatric and psychiatric care. Newton-Wellesley has been serving its community for over a century. The medical staff of the Hospital includes nearly 1,000 physicians practicing a full range of specialties. NWH is a major teaching hospital for Tufts University School of Medicine and also has established post-graduate training programs for Harvard Medical School residents.

To make an appointment with a physician or for more information about Newton-Wellesley Hospital’s services, specialties, free health screenings, lectures and other events, contact CareFinder at 617.243.6566; become a friend of the Hospital on Facebook www.nwh.org/facebook;  watch our videos on YouTube www.nwh.org/youtube; and follow us on Twitter www.nwh.org/twitter. 

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