Catholic Health receives area's top grades in Leapfrog Safety Report

Mount St. Mary’s, 2 other Catholic Health hospitals receive ‘A’ safety grades in report

Catholic Health has once again received Western New York’s highest cumulative overall score in The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2019 Hospital Safety Grade Report, and the only “A” safety grades in Erie and Niagara counties. In the national report released last week, Catholic Health hospitals earned three of only 11 “A” safety grades that were given in all of New York state.

Topping the list of area hospitals, Kenmore Mercy Hospital, Sisters of Charity Hospital, St. Joseph Campus, and Mount St. Mary’s Hospital all earned an “A.”

This was the 11th consecutive “A” grade for Kenmore Mercy.

Sisters of Charity Hospital’s Main Street campus and Mercy Hospital of Buffalo received a Grade of “B.”

“Quality and patient safety drives everything we do in Catholic Health, and these independent ratings are the benchmark by which we measure our success, not only locally, but among the best hospitals in the nation,” said Mark Sullivan, president and CEO of Catholic Health. “I’d like to thank our physicians, nurses, clinical professionals, support staff, leadership team and board of directors for their commitment to superior patient care and for setting the highest standards of excellence in our community.”

Based in Washington, D.C., The Leapfrog Group is an independent industry watchdog founded more than a decade ago by the nation’s largest and most influential employers and purchasers of healthcare to improve quality and safety for consumers. The group strives to promote transparency in health care quality reporting by grading hospitals from “A” to “F” on how well they protect patients from medical errors, infections and other preventable harm.

Developed under the guidance of an expert panel, the Leapfrog Group uses 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to arrive at their findings. In the spring 2019 report, The Leapfrog Group contracted with the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality to update its estimate of “avoidable deaths” due to medical errors and other preventable harm. Researchers found that, if all hospitals had an avoidable death rate equivalent to “A” hospitals, 50,000 American lives would have been saved.

In addition to the safety data reviewed by The Leapfrog Group, Catholic Health’s quality and patient safety department is responsible for thousands of quality measures to continuously monitor patient care and improve outcomes in its hospitals, nursing homes and home care agencies.

“For the past decade, Catholic Health has been an area leader in quality reporting transparency, because it is the right thing to do and helps patients make more informed health care decisions,” said Hans Cassagnol, M.D., MMM, Catholic Health’s chief physician executive. “Health care quality and patient safety is a never-ending journey, and we challenge ourselves every day to be better and improve the care we provide our patients and community. We welcome the opportunity to compare ourselves against the top performing hospitals in the country to raise the bar here in Western New York and ensure our patients receive the best care possible.”

For more information on hospital safety, as well as individual hospital grades and rankings, visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.