Clinical Excellence

December 6, 2011

18 Kaiser Permanente Hospitals Named Leapfrog’s ‘Top Hospitals’ of 2011

Eighteen Kaiser Permanente hospitals — 10 in Northern California and eight in Southern California — have been named 2011 Top Hospitals by the Leapfrog Group, an honor that rewards medical centers for their outstanding success in such areas as infection rates, safety practices, mortality rates for common procedures and measures of efficiency.

The 18 Kaiser Permanente hospitals represent better than one out of every three on Leapfrog’s list of urban hospitals. Out of nearly 900 urban hospitals that completed the Leapfrog survey and were considered for the award, only 52 were named "Top Hospitals.”

While Leapfrog’s methodology for selecting its “Top Hospitals” list hasn’t changed in the past three years, Kaiser Permanente’s quality of medical care and service has improved significantly. Last year, Kaiser Permanente had 16 hospitals in Leapfrog’s “Top” list. In 2009, six Kaiser Permanente hospitals were honored by Leapfrog.

Kaiser Permanente’s dedicated physicians and care teams put their patients at the center of every decision they make. They harness the capabilities of advanced technology and create innovative solutions to continuously deliver coordinated care and achieve superior clinical outcomes.

“Our prominence among Leapfrog’s top hospitals in the country showcases our continuous improvement and our commitment to high quality care and service by our physicians, nurses and clinicians,” said Jed Weissberg, MD, senior vice president, Quality and Care Delivery Excellence, Kaiser Permanente. “This honor also highlights our dedication to reducing potential errors. Our leadership in the field of technological innovation — especially our electronic health record — promotes efficiency, quality and patient safety.”

The Top Hospitals honor is the most recent in a string of accolades given to Kaiser Permanente hospitals and health plans. In the past few months:

• Kaiser Permanente received No. 1 rankings for 2011 in 11 effectiveness-of-care measures, more than any other health plan in the nation.
• Kaiser Permanente’s Medicare health plans received a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the highest ranking possible, in five of its regions.
• Kaiser Permanente was rated by the National Committee for Quality Assurance as having the four highest-ranked Medicare health plans in the nation and four of the top 25 Private (Commercial) health plans.

The Leapfrog Group is a voluntary reporting program that recognizes and rewards U.S. health care groups for safety, quality and customer value. The questions Leapfrog asks on its survey are consistent with measures used by The Joint Commission, National Quality Forum and Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services.

To make the cut and be among the top hospitals in urban areas for 2011, the medical centers must have reported that they fulfilled the following criteria:

• Fully met Leapfrog standards for implementing computer physician order entry systems (that have been shown to reduce medication errors by up to 85 percent), and for passing Leapfrog’s test of their system;
• Fully met stringent performance standards for complex, high-risk procedures (such as heart bypass surgery) done in that particular hospital;
• Fully met standards for staffing the intensive care unit, shown to reduce mortality by 40 percent or more; and
• Scored in the top decile in the country for efficiency — scored by the Leapfrog Hospital Recognition Program incorporating quality outcomes, length of stay, readmission rates, and incidence of hospital acquired conditions and infections. The efficiency standard applies to heart bypass surgery, heart angioplasty, heart attack and pneumonia patients.

The Leapfrog Group also recognized the top three rural hospitals and top 10 children’s hospitals.

View the complete list of the 2011 Leapfrog Top Hospitals or visit the Leapfrog Group’s website at www.leapfroggroup.org.