For immediate release: Dec. 4, 2012
NORTHAMPTON — Cooley Dickinson is one of 92 hospitals nationwide and eight in Massachusetts named to The Leapfrog Group’s annual list of Top Hospitals, which was announced Dec. 4 at Leapfrog’s Annual Meeting.
“It is because our doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and staff take the steps necessary to ensure that our patients receive safe, high-quality care that Cooley Dickinson achieved this recognition,” said Craig Melin, president and CEO. “Being named a Top Hospital is validation from an independent authority that our staff is continuously focused on delivering a high quality of care.
“Ultimately, our patients benefit most from our efforts, because they are less likely to experience quality or safety events at Cooley Dickinson,” he added.
Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said, “The Leapfrog Top Hospital distinction is by far the most competitive award a hospital can receive. Leapfrog holds hospitals to the highest standards on behalf of our purchaser members and their employees. By achieving the Top Hospital accolade, Cooley Dickinson has demonstrated exemplary performance across all areas of quality and patient safety that are analyzed on the Leapfrog Hospital Survey.”
She added, “This hospital stands out as one consistently providing safe, high quality care, and I would be comfortable sending my family to Cooley Dickinson for care.”
Besides announcing this years’ Top Hospitals, The Leapfrog Group focused on transparency as the key to improved hospital safety at its Annual Meeting.
Cooley Dickinson was selected as a Top Hospital out of nearly 1,200 hospitals participating in The Leapfrog Group’s annual survey. Hospitals reaching this achievement include academic medical centers, teaching hospitals, children’s hospitals, and community hospitals in rural, suburban and urban settings.
Top Hospital selections are based on the results of the Leapfrog Group’s annual hospital survey, which measures hospitals’ performance on patient safety and quality, focusing on three critical areas of hospital care: how patients f
are, resource use, and management structures in place to prevent errors. The results of the survey are posted on a website open to patients and families, the public, employers, and other purchasers of healthcare.
As a 2012 Top Hospital, Cooley Dickinson met the following standards for safe, high quality care. More details about each of these standards are available at www.leapfroggroup.org:
• A hospital must fully meet Leapfrog’s standard for Preventing Medication Errors (CPOE). Research estimates that more than one million serious medication errors occur each year in U.S. hospitals. Leapfrog’s standard for Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) measures the extent to which a hospital has adopted CPOE, and whether decision-support tools in the CPOE system are working effectively.
• A hospital must fully meet Leapfrog’s standard for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Physician Staffing. Mortality rates are significantly lower in hospitals with ICUs managed exclusively by board-certified intensivists (physicians trained in critical care medicine). Hospitals fulfilling Leapfrog’s standard for ICU Physician Staffing must operate adult and/or pediatric ICUs that are managed or co-managed by intensivists.
Pictured above are some of the providers who specialize in critical care medicine: From left, Matthew Lawrence, nurse practitioner; Richard Levrault, MD, intensivist, Tonbira Zaman, MD, intensivist, and David Serlin, MD, intensivist.
• A hospital must fully meet Leapfrog’s standards for high-risk surgeries and procedures. (Hospitals must achieve a score of “fully meets” for 50percent of the surgeries or procedures that apply.) Research indicates that a patient’s risk of dying is reduced by approximately two to four times, depending on the high-risk procedure, if care is obtained in hospitals that meet Leapfrog’s standards.
• A hospital must achieve a Value Score of 69 or better as calculated through Leapfrog’s Hospital Recognition Program (LHRP Value Score). The Leapfrog Hospital Recognition Program uses each standard from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey to calculate an overall value score for each hospital. The value score, which is a numerical value from 0 to 100, is a combination of quality and resource use, with quality weighted more heavily in the calculation. Hospitals with high value scores have demonstrated both high quality and appropriate resource use.
• Hospitals eligible for a Hospital Safety ScoreSM must receive an A on the letter grades publicly reported at the time of the Top Hospital public announcement. The Hospital Safety Score grades hospitals on how safe they are for patients. Each A, B, C, D or F score comes from expert analysis of publicly available data consumers can now use to protect their families from harm or death during a hospital stay.
About The Leapfrog Group
The Leapfrog Group is a national organization using the collective leverage of large purchasers of health care to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality, and affordability of health care for Americans. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey allows purchasers to structure their contracts and purchasing to reward the highest performing hospitals. The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 with support from the Business Roundtable and national funders, and is now independently operated with support from its purchaser and other members.
About Cooley Dickinson Hospital
Cooley Dickinson, a full-service community hospital, is ranked in the top 5 percent of all U.S. hospitals in patient safety by Healthgrades, the leading provider of information to help consumers make an informed decision about a physician or hospital. It is the only hospital in the Springfield area to achieve the HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award™ for four consecutive years 2009-2-12. Cooley Dickinson's staff of 1,650 professionals and 300 affiliated physicians comprise a network of emergency, surgical, clinical, rehabilitative, and hospice and home care expertise that admits 6,000 patients, treats 40,000 emergency patients per year, delivers 800 babies, and collaborates with Massachusetts General Hospital to deliver comprehensive cancer care. Cooley Dickinson's vision is to make the mid-Pioneer Valley the nation's model healthy community. Learn more at www.cooley-dickinson.org.