Almost every hospital in and around the Lehigh Valley earned high marks on Leapfrog Group’s most recent national hospital safety survey.
The nonprofit Leapfrog Group releases its Hospital Safety Grade reports during fall and spring each year. Hospitals are graded from A to F based on multiple factors and metrics such as how well they prevent medical errors, accidents and infections. The newest batch of grades was released last week for nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide.
Nearly all St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network-operated hospitals earned A or B ratings.
Lehigh Valley Hospital–Hecktown Oaks, St. Luke’s University Hospital–Fountain Hill, St. Luke’s Hospital–Easton, St. Luke’s–Allentown, St. Luke’s–Anderson, St. Luke’s–Monroe, Geisinger St. Luke’s, St. Luke’s–Sacred Heart and St. Luke’s–Warren in New Jersey all maintained A grades.
“This kind of consistency across all of our campuses reflects the remarkable success St. Luke’s has achieved in integrating our hospitals into a single, unified network with a shared commitment to all-around excellence,” said Donna Sabol, St. Luke’s senior vice president and chief quality officer, in a news release from the network.
LVH-Muhlenberg and St. Luke’s–Miners campus both maintained B grades while LVH–Cedar Crest and St. Luke’s Upper Bucks fell from A grades to Bs. LVH–Pocono rose from a B to an A grade and LVH–Schuylkill rose from a C to a B.
St. Luke’s–Carbon, which was graded for the first time by Leapfrog, received an A.
“Receiving these ‘A’ grades from Leapfrog lets our community know they’re in safe hands,” said Dr. Matthew McCambridge, LVHN’s senior vice president and chief quality, patient safety and acute care continuum officer. “I am incredibly proud of colleagues who work at LVH–Pocono and LVH–Hecktown Oaks because they work tirelessly to ensure our patients receive the safe, high-quality care they expect and deserve.”
LVH-Hazleton, which dropped from an A to a B last fall, dropped another letter grade down to a C for this spring. In total, 29 hospitals in the state earned a C rating for safety including Tower Health-operated Reading Hospital and three hospitals operated by Jefferson Health, which plans to merge with LVHN. Seven Pennsylvania hospitals earned D ratings but none received F grades.
Despite most LVHN and St. Luke’s hospitals scoring high grades overall, the survey also noted areas where these hospitals could improve.
Every LVHN hospital except Hazleton was rated below average at preventing complications after surgery, procedures or childbirth. All hospitals other than Schuylkill and Hazleton were rated below average at preventing dangerous bed sores, sores or wounds that form when patients spend too much time in bed. The same was true for preventing collapsed lungs, which is when air leaks out of the lungs into the area between the lungs and your chest wall.
Dangerous bed sores can be large and deep, exposing muscle and even bone with possible consequences being longer hospital stays, amputation and even death, but hospitals can prevent them by making sure bedridden patients are turned over regularly. Collapsed lungs can lead to complications and severe discomfort but can be prevented by hospitals ensuring staff are well-trained in how to insert and remove tubes from the chest area.
“We take our Leapfrog scores very seriously as patient safety is our top priority at LVHN. We use the report to determine areas where we can improve, and we place a greater emphasis on making those improvements moving forward,” McCambridge said. “As the report indicates even many hospitals that receive A’s for safety have areas where they score low and are considered opportunities for improvement.”
Multiple St. Luke’s operated hospitals were rated low when it came to preventing falls and injuries at the hospital, including falls that resulted in broken hips. Sacred Heart, Allentown, Carbon, Miners, Upper Bucks and Bethlehem campuses were all ranked as below average when it came to preventing falls and injuries. The Warren and Anderson campuses were rated below average when it came to preventing patient falls that resulted in broken hips.
Falls and injuries that occur in the hospital are common with older or weakened patients and result in increased recovery time and lengthened hospital stays. Hospitals can prevent them by making sure patients know how to request assistance, keeping hallways clear of hazards and putting alarms on beds of patients who are at high risk of falling.
Sabol said St. Luke’s has introduced new AI technology that reviews the electronic medical record to identify patients who are most at risk for falling. The network has also implemented a new mobility program that aims to get high-risk patients out of bed and on their feet so they don’t lose strength and balance.
“We expect these measures to have very positive impact on our patients who are at most risk for falling,” Sabol said. “This will be reflected in future data.”
To calculate its scores, Leapfrog uses up to 22 national patient safety measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and information from other supplemental data sources.
However, there are limitations to the methodology Leapfrog uses as well as some of its data sources. Some of the CMS data for its fall 2022 scores are from a reporting period that ended in December 2019.
Leapfrog’s ratings also don’t take into account all potentially relevant information about hospital safety and conditions, including more qualitative factors like state health safety reports or disciplinary actions taken by the state against hospitals.
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