A week after the release of its best-in-market patient-satisfaction scores on the federal Hospital Compare Web site, Saint Luke's Health System has distinguished itself in the area of patient safety.
Health Grades, an independent health care rating company, reported Tuesday that Saint Luke's Hospital was one of 249 U.S. hospitals to receive the company's 2008 Distinguished Hospital Awards for Patient Safety.
The ranking placed Saint Luke's Hospital in the top 5 percent of nearly 5,000 U.S. hospitals in terms of patient-safety outcomes, Health Grades said in a release. Saint Luke's was among only 115 U.S. teaching hospitals and nine Missouri hospitals to receive the award, the release said.
Saint Luke's, which won the award for the fourth consecutive year, also was the only hospital in the Kansas City area so honored this year.
"Saint Luke's is gratified to once again achieve this impressive level of patient safety," G. Richard Hastings, CEO of Saint Luke's Hospital and the Saint Luke's Health System, said in the release. "This honor is evidence of the skill and dedication of Saint Luke's nurses and doctors who care for our patients every day."
If all U.S. hospitals had performed at the level of the 2008 patient-safety awardees from 2004 through 2006, the years examined in the new patient-satisfaction study, an estimated 220,106 patient-safety incidents, 37,214 Medicare deaths and $2 billion in spending could have been avoided, Health Grades said in the release.
Health Grades said its analysis of 41 million Medicare patient records determined that patients treated at the top-performing hospitals had, on average, a 43 percent lower chance of experiencing one or more errors, compared with the poorest performing hospitals.
The overall incident rate was about 3 percent of all Medicare admissions evaluated, accounting for 1.1 million patient safety incidents during the three years examined in Health Grades' fifth-annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study.
"With the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services scheduled to stop reimbursing hospitals for treatment of eight major preventable errors, including objects left in the body after surgery and certain post-surgical infections, starting Oct. 1, the financial implications for hospitals are substantial," Health Grades said.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2008/04/07/daily14.html
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