December 2, 2015

Harrington Joins Elite List of Hospitals to Score Eight Consecutive “A” Grades from Leapfrog for Patient Safety

SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass. – December 2, 2015 – Harrington HealthCare System recently joined an elite list of hospitals across the nation to earn eight consecutive “A” grades–the highest letter grade available–from The Leapfrog Group, a national healthcare rating organization.

The score reflects a wide range of safety measures, including how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries, and infections. More than 2,500 hospitals are graded twice annually. Harrington is one of only 133 hospitals nationwide to achieve eight consecutive A’s.

“Patient safety is of the utmost importance to us at Harrington HealthCare System,” said Ed Moore, President and CEO. “This honor reinforces the daily effort of our dedicated medical team to ensure safety, quality, and satisfaction for our patients.”

Twenty-eight measures of publicly available data are weighted and then combined to produce a single letter-grade score.

The Leapfrog Group was established in 2000 and started the Hospital Safety Scores in 2012. The goal of the nonprofit organization is to “increase transparency among health care providers in order to reduce the estimated 440,000 annual deaths from hospital errors, accidents, and injuries.”

According to a recent study in The Journal of Patient Safety, research indicates that when shown Hospital Safety Scores and cost information, consumers will choose safer hospitals 97 percent of the time.

The latest Leapfrog rating is one of a number Harrington’s quality and patient safety accolades.

Among Harrington’s recent achievements are:

• Lowest primary C-section rate in Massachusetts–14.3% as reported by the Leapfrog Group
• Highest Reduction in Readmissions among all Massachusetts hospitals from 2011 to 2013 (18.6% drop as reported by the Center for Health Information and Analysis)
• National accreditation from the Commission on Cancer for the Cancer Center
• A Top Hospital in the Nation two years in a row – 2013 and 2014 from The Leapfrog Group
• Patient Safety Excellence Award and Outstanding Patient Experience Award from HealthGrades
• Top 10 Massachusetts Hospitals For Quality Measures and 99th percentile patient satisfaction rating for inpatient care from Press Ganey
• Healgoics Center of Distinction for the Wound Care Center
• “Get With the Guidelines” – Gold Plus Achievement Award for stroke care from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association
• Defect-free Care Award from the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Program

Leapfrog safety scores are public information and can be found by visiting www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.