Paoli Hospital's Safety Ranked In New Nonprofit Study

PAOLI, PA – The bi-annual hospital safety grade rankings from nonprofit watchdog group Leapfrog has been released and some hospitals improved, others worsened.

So what was Paoli Hospital's ranking this spring? First let's lay out how Leapfrog determines its safety grades.

Leapfrog says 27 evidence-based measures of patient safety are used to calculate the grades. Applying that information, a numerical score is then created and converted into one of five letter grades.

The group uses performance measures from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections are taken into account by Leapfrog when calculating the grades.

In spring 2018, Paoli Hospital earned a B grade.

That's a bit of a slip for the facility, as it earned an A grade in fall 2017, spring 2017, and fall 2016. In spring 2016 and fall 2015 it earned a B. Spring 2015 saw a C grade for the hospital.

Overall, no Pennsylvania facilities earned a F grade. Five earned a D and 42 earned a C.

Paoli was one of 34 PA facilities to earn a B. In total 37 earned A grades in Pennsylvania.

See the full ranking list here.

"Issued twice per year, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade empowers regular people to find a safer hospital in their community by using the easy-to-understand A, B, C, D, F grading system," Leapfrog explains. You can read more about the letter grades here.

Nationwide, the group assessed roughly 2,500 hospitals. Of those, 30 percent earned an A, 28 percent earned a B, 35 percent a C, 6 percent a D, and 1 percent an F.

"The national numbers on death and harm in hospitals have alarmed us for decades. What we see in the new round of Safety Grades are signs of many hospitals making significant improvements in their patient safety record," Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a release.

With reporting by Kara Seymour

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