SOMERS POINT — For a hospital to earn a Leapfrog “A” Safety Rating, it has to meet or exceed some 50 quality metrics. The rating reflects measures taken by medical professionals that should give patients an added level of comfort when they’re in the uncomfortable situation of having to go to a hospital.
Shore Medical Center just earned its second consecutive “A” rating from The Leapfrog Group, an organization that rates safety data on hospitals nationwide.
“There is a multitude of measures that we have to be above to get a Leapfrog Safety Grade A,” said Valerie M. DeJoseph, MS, RVT, RDMS, administrative director of Quality, Medical Staff Services & Regulatory at Shore Medical Center.
The metrics include “our infection rates, our maternity care, our patient satisfaction scores, our electronic medical records and how we’re using them, our staffing, our physicians, their outcomes, their complications,” she said.
“Patient satisfaction is incorporated in the metrics of the Leapfrog score,” added Kathleen Biancorosso, MBA, administrative director of Patient Experience at Shore Medical Center.
“We have metrics that we have to follow,” she said, explaining patients also get a satisfaction survey. Scores from that are incorporated into the Leapfrog score.
“Shore Medical wants to ensure that when patients are filling out the surveys, they are giving Shore good scores because of how they were treated when in the hospital,” she said.
Overall, Biancorosso added, “We’re making sure that communication is being done with all the specialty doctors, and the doctors and the nurses, making sure that those metrics are being met.”
“It’s very comforting to know that we have very low infection rates, that we have systems for preventing errors,” DeJoseph said. “You also have to look at our ethics and our informed consent for our patients so they feel comfortable, that we’re doing everything for them, ethically, and we’re providing health care equity for our patients and our community. They should really feel good walking in and full of confidence.”
Getting consecutive “A” Safety Grades takes consistent work, Biancorosso and DeJoseph explained.
“We have a lot of initiatives that we follow,” Biancorosso said.
At the beginning of the year, the staff goes over high-priority metrics of all the questions in the various domains and then “we will build out initiatives individually for units and for departments.”
The initiatives include things such as nurse communication, doctor communication, the discharge process, communication with medicine,” she said.
It’s all about consistency, Biancorosso added. To get one “A” rating and then a consecutive “A” rating, “we have to be consistent across the board. We focus on consistency, customer service. That’s a huge organizational initiative that we follow.”
“We share our culture of safety here and everybody is part of it,” DeJoseph said. “It just doesn’t come from the quality department. It comes from our EBS department when you walk in this door, it comes from our food services, how clean this hospital is. It starts from the top down and bottom up. I have to be sure that everybody is aware of the initiatives.”
“What’s important for this hospital is to demonstrate excellence here and it’s an ongoing initiative. It’s not just doing it one cycle or two cycles. It’s sustaining it over years,” she added.
“What’s most important is that we just don’t do it for one year; this is our culture. This is our culture of safety,” DeJoseph said. “Everybody’s empowered to provide the best care for our patients here in our community.”
“Earning our second consecutive ‘A’ Hospital Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group is a significant accomplishment that reflects the hard work and dedication of our incredible team,” David Hughes, president and chief executive officer of Shore Medical Center, said when Leapfrog announced the rating in November.
“We thank every member of the Shore family for ensuring our patients and visitors receive the highest quality care in the safest possible environment,” Hughes said. “This ‘A’ grade speaks to the culture of compassion and excellence we’ve built at Shore and the trust our community places in us every day.”
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff