St. David's HealthCare facilities nationally recognized for earning “A” ratings in Spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades
AUSTIN, Texas—All eligible St. David’s HealthCare facilities were recently awarded an “A” from The Leapfrog Group’s Spring 2021 Hospital Safety Grades. This national distinction recognizes hospitals’ efforts to provide safer healthcare and protect patients from harm. St. David’s HealthCare is the only hospital system to receive an “A” for all eligible facilities in the Austin area.
The Leapfrog Group is an independent, national nonprofit organization committed to improving healthcare quality and safety for patients. The Hospital Safety Grade assigns a letter grade to hospitals across the country every six months based on their performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents and infections among patients in their care.
St. David’s Medical Center, St. David’s North Austin Medical Center, St. David’s South Austin Medical Center, St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center and St. David’s Georgetown Hospital all received an “A” rating. St. David’s Medical Center is the only hospital in the state to receive straight “A” ratings since The Leapfrog Group launched the Hospital Safety ScoreSM initiative (now known as Hospital Safety Grades) in 2012. Heart Hospital of Austin and St. David’s Surgical Hospital were not included in the study completed by The Leapfrog Group because the facilities are considered specialty hospitals.
“Safe, quality care is always our priority, and it was particularly important this year as we faced the biggest public health crisis of our lifetimes,” Ken Mitchell, M.D., chief medical officer of St. David’s HealthCare, said. “We are incredibly grateful to all of the frontline workers who provided exceptional care to our community, especially during this critical time of need.”
Developed under the guidance of a national expert panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,700 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety
Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.
For more information about the Hospital Safety Grades, visit HospitalSafetyGrade.org.
St. David’s HealthCare
St. David’s HealthCare includes seven of the area’s leading hospitals and is one of the largest health systems in Texas. The organization has been recognized with a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award—the nation’s highest presidential honor for performance excellence. St. David’s HealthCare is the fourth-largest private employer in the Austin area, with more than 10,600 colleagues across 132 sites of care.
St. David’s HealthCare is a unique partnership between hospital management company HCA Healthcare and two local non-profits—St. David’s Foundation and Georgetown Health Foundation. The proceeds from the operations of the hospitals fund the foundations, which, in turn, invest those dollars back into the community. Since the inception of St. David’s HealthCare in 1996, nearly $700 million has been given back to the community to improve the health and healthcare of Central Texans.
The Leapfrog Group
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American healthcare. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey and new Leapfrog Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Survey collect and transparently report hospital and ASC performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.
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May 3, 2021
St. David's HealthCare