HealthGrades announces top safety award for Western Baptist

An independent healthcare ratings organization announced on WPSD Local 6 that Western Baptist Hospital ranks among the top hospitals in the nation for patient safety. (Click here to view the television news story.) 

Richard May, M.D., senior physician consultant with HealthGrades, said Western Baptist and Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau, Mo., are the only two area hospitals to win its 2009 Patient Safety Excellence Award.

In a live interview, he said it’s important for patients to recognize there is a huge disparity between these high-performing hospitals and those not performing so well.

“There is a 43 percent higher chance of having a significant complication at those lower-performing hospitals than at the excellent hospitals at the very top of that patient safety list,” he said.

Dr. May told TV viewers that HealthGrades analyzed Medicare data from every hospital in the nation, totaling nearly 5,000 hospitals, to see how well each prevented potential patient safety issues, including infection rates, blood clots that go to the lungs and bed sores.

A news release posted at www.healthgrades.com said the 242 winning hospitals, or less than 5 percent of all hospitals in the U.S., represent “an elite group that save lives, save money and prevent errors at a higher rate than other U.S. hospitals.”

It also said if all hospitals performed at the rate of the award-winning hospitals, approximately 211,697 patient safety events and 22,771 Medicare deaths could have been avoided, saving approximately $2 billion from 2005 through 2007.

The news release said the organization developed the award to give patients more information about choosing a hospital. It quotes Dr. May, co-author of the study:

“Patient safety incidents are one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. The sad fact is that many, if not most, of these errors are preventable. Patients shouldn’t die or experience unnecessary harm as a result of medical errors in hospitals.

“The good news is that there are hospitals that are doing an amazing job when it comes to patient safety and we commend them. Patients need to know that they have a substantially lower risk of experiencing a medical error and therefore a lower risk of death or complications when they are admitted to one of these exceptional top-performing hospitals.”

More information, including the study’s methodology and a list of all winners, is available at www.healthgrades.com.