Hospitals across the country eagerly await the release of The Leapfrog Group's Safety Grades in the spring and fall each year. Leah Binder, president and CEO of the organization, spoke with Becker's about why her organization's A-F grades are important.
"We believe our safety grade report has an enormous impact on accelerating change in hospitals," she said, noting when hospital leaders look at these grades it "gives momentum to safety improvement efforts."
Once a hospital knows its grade, especially if they receive an "A" rating from Leapfrog, they want to make sure their community is well aware of their commitment to safety.
At the same time, the Leapfrog survey forces transparency when it comes to the hospitals that need to improve their commitment to safety regarding hospital-acquired infections, inpatient injuries and medication errors.
For example, some states saw triple-digit increases in HAIs between 2018-19 and the most recent data reported May 3 (2020 to 2021). Ms. Binder called these increases "alarming" and "dangerous" and said they are a call to action for the hospitals who reported record-high increases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, central line-associated bloodstream infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
The organization's spring 2023 Safety Grades report was released May 3.
"Nobody wants infections. No hospital wants to see these rates spike, nobody. But it means everyone has to come together and make safety a priority. So how do we do that? Transparency," Ms. Binder said.
When a hospital learns it has been included on anything less than the "A" rating list, there is room for improvement.
"Everyone has to start using the same playbook and really pushing to bring their numbers down. When the safety grades are released, the transparency suddenly provides everyone with a common goal," she said. "Our hope is that hospitals will use this information to their advantage to really improve things fast."