The Leapfrog Group Announces Annual Top Hospitals List
The Leapfrog Group’s annual class of top hospitals – 65 from a field of nearly 1,200 – was announced today in Washington, D.C. and, for the first time, included Swedish Medical Center’s First Hill and Cherry Hill campuses. The announcement came at Leapfrog’s 10th anniversary meeting. A complete list of 2010 Leapfrog Top Hospitals can be viewed at www.leapfroggroup.org.
The Leapfrog Group is a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage – including Boeing and the Washington State Healthcare Authority – which was founded a decade ago to work for improvements in health-care safety, quality and affordability. Initially organized by the Business Roundtable, it is now an independent advocacy group working with a broad range of partners, including hospitals and insurers.
The ‘Top Hospital’ selection is based on the results of the Leapfrog Group’s national survey, which launched in 2001. It measures hospitals’ performance in crucial areas of patient safety and quality, including:
- The use of computer physician order entry (CPOE) to prevent medication errors;
- Standards for doing high-risk procedures such as heart surgery;
- Protocols and policies to reduce medical errors and other safe practices recommended by the National Quality Forat um; and
- Adequate nurse and physician staffing
The results of the survey are posted www.leapfroggroup.org.
