Phoenixville Hospital Receives C Grade For Safety: Nonprofit

PHOENIXVILLE, PA — Phoenixville Hospital received below average safety grades in a recent study of hospitals by a nonprofit.

The grades were issued by The Leapfrog Group on Tuesday. A total of 38 Pennsylvania hospitals were distinguished with the coveted "A" grade for safety. Phoenixville Hospital, meanwhile, earned a "C."

"Errors and infections in hospitals are the third leading cause of death in America, and people deserve to know which of their hospitals are best at preventing them," Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a press release.

Medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections are taken into account by Leapfrog when calculating the grades. The goal of the rankings is to determine a patient's risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital.

At Phoenixville Hospital, low grades were given for preventing infections, including surgical site infections after colon surgery, urinary tract infections, and C. diff infections, the nonprofit said.

Surgery problems at Phoenixville, meanwhile, included dangerous blood clots, accidental cuts and tears, and serious breathing problems.

The responsiveness of hospital staff and communication with doctors were also given very low grades.

Leapfrog assigns A, B, C, D, and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes 27 measures that are taken together to produce a single letter grade representing a hospital's overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

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. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

Here are the Pennsylvania hospitals that received an A:

1. Abington Health Lansdale Hospital, Lansdale
2. Aria Health - Bucks County Division, Langhorne
3. Bryn Mawr Hospital, Bryn Mawr
4. DLP Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center, Johnstown
5. Doylestown Hospital, Doylestown
6. Evangelical Community Hospital, Lewisburg
7. Geisinger Medical Center, Danville
8. Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center, Wilkes-Barre
9. Grand View Health, Sellersville
10. Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital, Sayre
11. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
12. Indiana Regional Medical Center, Indiana
13. Jeanes Hospital, Philadelphia
14. Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster
15. Latrobe Hospital, Latrobe
16. Lehigh Valley Hospital - Muhlenberg, Bethlehem
17. Lehigh Valley Hospital - Pocono, East Stroudsburg
18. Meadville Medical Center, Meadville
19. Monongahela Valley Hospital, Monongahela
20. Paoli Hospital, Paoli
21. Penn Medicine Chester County Hospital, West Chester
22. Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Philadelphia
23. Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey
24. PinnacleHealth Community General Osteopathic Hospital, Harrisburg
25. PinnacleHealth Harrisburg Hospital, Harrisburg
26. PinnacleHealth West Shore Hospital, Mechanicsburg
27. St. Clair Hospital, Pittsburgh
28. St. Luke's Hospital - Allentown Campus, Allentown
29. St. Luke's Quakertown Hospital, Quakertown
30. St. Luke's University Hospital - Bethlehem Campus, Bethlehem
31. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia
32. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital - Methodist Hospital Campus, Philadelphia
33. Uniontown Hospital, Uniontown
34. UPMC East, Monroeville
35. UPMC Bedford Memorial, Everett
36. UPMC Pinnacle Carlisle, Carlisle
37. WellSpan Gettysburg Hospital, Gettysburg
38. Williamsport Regional Medical Center, Williamsport

Click here to see how every Pennsylvania hospital was ranked.

Leapfrog notes that of the 2,632 hospitals graded in Tuesday's update, 832 earned an "A," 662 a "B," 964 a "C," 159 a "D" and 15 an "F."

Patch file photo