Holy Family Hospital has again earned an “A” Hospital Safety Grade from the nationally recognized Leapfrog Group, an independent healthcare industry watchdog.

 

Holy Family Hospital has earned an “A” in every Safety Grade cycle since the program launched in the Spring of 2012, making it one of only 72 hospitals in the entire nation to accomplish Straight A’s.

 

This prestigious “A” Hospital Safety Grade applies to both of Holy Family Hospital’s full service campuses in Methuen and Haverhill, which provide comprehensive inpatient and outpatient care, surgical care, intensive care, and 24/7 emergency services to the Merrimack Valley and southern New Hampshire.

 

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Hospital Association’s Annual Survey and Health Information Technology Supplement, and the Leapfrog Hospital Survey. Together, those performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

 

Calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score, to represent a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm.

 

“Earning Straight ‘As’ in the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is a remarkable achievement and testament to a hospital’s ongoing vigilance and commitment to patient safety,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “We thank Holy Family Hospital for being an example of excellence in preventing harm to patients, and urge you to continue championing patient safety.”

 

The Leapfrog Group grades hospital s on many things related to patient safety, including prevention of medication errors through electronic order entry, full-time intensivist coverage in the Intensive Care Unit, steps to avoid harm, reduction of pressure ulcers, reduction of hospital harm, management of serious errors, reduction of Intensive Care Unit infections, hospital infection rates, complication rates, mortality rates, and patient readmission rates.

 

“At Holy Family Hospital, our goal is to continually improve the delivery of healthcare care across both of our full-service campuses,” says Holy Family Hospital President Craig Jesioloswski, FACHE. “Our hospital strives to have the most highly qualified physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, and health care professionals on staff because we understand that outstanding training, attention to detail and dedication to patients all play a role in keeping patients safe.  This award proves that the highest standard of care is being delivered to our patients, and I couldn’t be more proud of our team.”