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| Doctors Ranked Among Top Five Percent Nationally in Patient Safety |
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 |  | | Anne Warren, HealthGrades Director-Provider Services, honoring Doctors Hospital's CEO - Mitch Edgeworth with the 2006 Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient SafetyTM | | | |
HealthGrades Study Based on Nearly 40 Million Patient Records in the U.S.
Patients treated at Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety are 43 percent less likely
to have an adverse, preventable event during their stay
DALLAS-Doctors Hospital of Dallas announced today that it has been named in an independent national research study as a recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient SafetyTM, according to HealthGrades, a leading healthcare ratings company.
This distinction ranks Doctors Hospital of Dallas among the top five percent nationally for patient safety outcomes and will be honored for this achievement with a trophy ceremony at 11:00 am onWednesday, June 28th in the hospital’s cafeteria.
“Patients simply expect their healthcare to be high quality, and Doctors Hospital of Dallas delivers,” said Mitch Edgeworth, Doctors Hospital’s CEO. “The findings of HealthGrades’ national research are a testimony to the skill and dedication of our patient care teams, and serve as peace of mind for the patients who walk through our doors every day.”
In its Third Annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study, HealthGrades independently analyzed nearly 40 million Medicare patient records from federal fiscal years 2002 to 2004 using 13 patient safety indicators developed by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The patient records were obtained directly from the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. More than 5,100 teaching and non-teaching hospitals were analyzed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including all non-federal hospitals that submit Medicare data.
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The HealthGrades study compares the rates of key patient safety events, such as post-operative infections and preventable deaths, using AHRQ’s methodology. A total of 1,593 U.S. hospitals (out of more than 5,100 evaluated) were eligible to receive the award, based on HealthGrades’ criteria that recipients must treat a wide range of medical conditions and demonstrate an acceptable level of clinical quality in terms of mortality and complication rates.
From the list of eligible recipients, hospitals that performed in the top fifteen percent in terms of outcomes are recognized as recipients of the 2006 Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient Safety. This year, a total of 238 hospitals (114 teaching and 124 non-teaching), including 16 in California, received the prestigious award. This translates into the top five percent nationally for patient safety outcomes, when all U.S. hospitals are considered.
Nationwide, the HealthGrades study found that there were 1.24 million patient safety events in the Medicare patient population, up from 1.18 million events in the 2005 study. Of the 304,702 deaths in the Medicare population during the study period, a total of 250,246 were potentially preventable due to patient safety events. These events also added $9.3 billion in additional costs to the U.S. healthcare system.
If all Medicare patients had been treated at Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety during that period, HealthGrades found that 280,134 patient safety events, 44,153 deaths and $2.45 billion in excess costs could have been avoided. On average, patients at Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety are also 43 percent less likely to experience an adverse, preventable event during their stay than patients treated at the bottom-performing hospitals.
“Medical errors are primarily an organizational issue resulting from inadequate or nonexistent systems that evidence suggest would reduce the probability of errors,” explained Samantha Collier, M.D., HealthGrades’ vice president of medical affairs. “In our experience, Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety have made a commitment to ensure adequate systems are in place, or soon to be in place, that effectively reduce errors.”
The Third Annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study and current clinical quality ratings for all U.S. hospitals are available, free of charge, on the web at www.healthgrades.com. More than two-and-a-half million unique users and 125 major employers visit the HealthGrades web site every month to access quality information about hospitals, nursing homes and physicians. HealthGrades also provides consumers and payers with medical cost comparisons for common procedures and diagnoses.
More information on the study’s methodology is available at www.healthgrades.com. |
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