For the third consecutive year, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has been named a Top Children’s Hospital on The Leapfrog Group’s annual list of Top Hospitals. The Top Hospitals list was announced today in Baltimore, Maryland during Leapfrog’s Annual Meeting. Nationwide Children’s is one of only two children’s hospitals in Ohio, and one of 13 children’s hospitals nationwide, to be included on this prestigious list.
“The field of hospitals’ considered for this year’s elite Leapfrog Top Hospital distinction was more competitive than ever. By achieving the Top Hospital accolade, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has demonstrated exemplary performance across all areas of quality and patient safety that are analyzed on the Leapfrog Hospital Survey. If my family or friends needed care, I’d be comfortable sending them to Nationwide Children’s,” said Leah Binder, president & CEO of The Leapfrog Group.
Nationwide Children’s was selected as a Top Hospital out of a record number of 1,324 hospitals participating in The Leapfrog Group’s annual survey. The list includes 22 Top Rural Hospitals, 55 Top Urban Hospitals and 13 Top Children’s Hospitals. Hospitals reaching this achievement include academic medical centers, teaching hospitals, children’s hospitals, and community hospitals in rural, suburban and urban settings. The selection is 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 fare, resource use, and management structures in place to prevent errors. The results of the survey are posted on www.leapfroggroup.org/cp, open to patients and families, the public, employers and other purchasers of health care.
“It is validating once again to be selected as a 2013 Leapfrog Top Children’s Hospital. This recognition is a testament to our team and their ongoing dedication to provide a safe day every day for the patients and families we serve,” said Steve Allen, MD, CEO of Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “This commitment is exemplified through the hospital's transformational Zero Hero program targeted at eliminating all preventable harm.”
Nationwide Children’s Zero Hero project was launched in July of 2009 and is designed to emphasize the safety role of every Nationwide Children’s employee. By striving to zero, the program seeks to eliminate preventable harm. The program teaches staff to incorporate behaviors into their everyday clinical activities that have been shown to reduce the likelihood of committing an error. Nationwide Children's was a pioneer in developing this approach as well as publishing their safety data on-line.
As a 2013 Top Children’s Hospital, Nationwide Children’s met numerous standards for safe, high quality care. This includes achieving a Quality Score of 86 or better as calculated through Leapfrog’s Hospital Recognition Program, which uses standards from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey to calculate an overall quality score for each children’s hospital. The quality score, which is a numerical value from 0 to 100, includes Leapfrog’s standards for preventing medical errors (CPOE), ICU Physician Staffing, Safe Practices, Never Events and in some cases, preventing hospital-acquired conditions such as infections. Hospitals with high quality scores have demonstrated strict adherence to Leapfrog’s safety and quality standards.
About The Leapfrog Group
The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org) 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.