Analysis Shows Patient Safety At Nation’s Lowest-Rated Hospitals Has Gotten Worse

reports new research released Wednesday from the nonprofit Leapfrog group, which grades hospitals based on safety and quality, found “patients’ risk of dying from medical mistakes, deadly infections and safety lapses [has] gotten much worse at the lowest ranked U.S. hospitals.” The analysis is “based on data gleaned from about 2,600 U.S. hospitals since 2016.” Leapfrog CEO Leah Binder said, “These are the avoidable deaths – the deaths that are accidental or the result of a mistake made in the hospital.” Hospitals that scored poorly “have claimed that the rankings are skewed because they treat sicker patients, whereas higher-graded hospitals have a healthier, more affluent clientele and are therefore less likely to have complications.” However, Leapfrog “counters that some of their measurements, such as hospital infections, are risk adjusted to reflect sickness levels of patients.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/05/15/patient-safety-d-and-f-hospitals-have-twice-death-risk-error/1183705001/