05/09/2022
Five ‘A’s in a row! Northern Dutchess Hospital is proud to be among a small group of elite hospitals to earn an ‘A’ safety grade from The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit focused on improving healthcare quality, safety and transparency.
Based in Washington, D.C., Leapfrog provides Hospital Safety Grades for more than 2,500 general hospitals, with the goal to help consumers make smarter choices in their personal healthcare.
With scorecards published in the spring and fall, Leapfrog assesses hospitals for steps to avoid harm, medication safety, preventable infections, surgical volumes, maternity outcomes and more.
Since 2019, Northern Dutchess Hospital has been assigned an ‘A’ grade out of A, B, C, D and F. These are based on hospitals’ ability to prevent errors, injuries, infections and other harm to patients.
“One ‘A’ grade is a proud achievement,” said Denise George, hospital president. “When you consistently receive the highest score five consecutive times, we have clearly and thoroughly demonstrated that safety is hardwired in this hospital’s delivery of care.”
Some examples of hospital practices to prevent errors include:
- Regularly surveying physicians, nurses and other staff on the culture of safety to measure how well staff works together to keep patients safe.
- Patient communication initiatives to ensure that the patient understands the purpose of any new medication they are given, how to take the medication and the risk of any possible side effects.
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Training and policies to make sure that all hospital staff sanitizes their hands before touching a patient.
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Bar coding technology effectively for all orders to avoid medication errors.
Leapfrog’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public at hospitalsafetygrade.org.
Learn more about Northern Dutchess Hospital.