Mercy hospitals in Springfield and Lebanon Earn A Grades for Patient Safety

Mercy Hospital Springfield and Mercy Hospital Lebanon are among only 832 hospitals nationally awarded an A from The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2019 Hospital Safety Grade.

The designation recognizes Mercy’s efforts in protecting patients from harm and meeting the highest safety standards in the United States.

The Safety Grade assigns A, B, C, D and F letter grades to hospitals nationwide based on their performance in preventing medical errors, infections and other harm among patients in their care. Those scores were announced today by The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit patient safety advocate. To see full grade details, visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org

“Awards like this are the result of our co-workers’ focus on providing the very best care to our patients – whether they work at the bedside or design the programs that enable us to scan bar codes on patients’ medicine before they take it,” said Jon Swope, president of Mercy Springfield Communities. “It’s all of us working together, and I think it’s especially fitting for these grades to come out as we’re celebrating our co-workers during National Health Care Week. It’s another reminder of their high-quality work.”

Leapfrog’s Hospital Safety Grade recognizes hospitals that focus on advancing patient safety. “Hospitals that earn an ‘A’ grade are making it a priority to protect patients from preventable medical harm and error,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group.

Developed under the guidance of a national expert panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent. Results are free to the public, and the hospitalsafetygrade.org website also includes patient tips for staying safe in the hospital.

In addition, IBM Watson Health recently named Mercy as one of the top five large health systems in the nation, based on things like shorter hospital stays, fewer complications and better patient results. This is the fourth year in a row Mercy has received that honor.