For the fourth consecutive year, Children's Hospital Los Angeles has earned the Top Hospital designation from The Leapfrog Group, which annually recognizes the best hospitals in the nation for providing the safest and highest quality health care services to patients. Children's Hospital Los Angeles is one of only 12 children's hospitals nationally to receive this honor and was the only children's hospital in California to earn the top award.
"This has been a tremendous year for Children's Hospital Los Angeles," says Richard D. Cordova, FACHE, president and CEO of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "In June, we were recognized as one of the top five children's hospitals in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, a bellwether accomplishment one year after the opening of our new 317-bed hospital. Now we are a Leapfrog award winner for the fourth year in a row. I want to thank the doctors, nurses and staff, and especially our Quality Improvement and Patient Safety team, all of whom have worked extraordinarily hard during 2012 and made this Leapfrog honor a true acknowledgement of our outstanding efforts. The Top Hospital designation also recognizes the great work by our hospital Board of Trustees and its Safety, Quality and Service Committee, which oversees quality management at our hospital."
Children's Hospital Los Angeles was selected as a Top Hospital among the 1,200 hospitals nationwide that completed the survey, including 38 children's hospitals. The Leapfrog Hospital Recognition Program uses standards from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey to calculate an overall quality score for each hospital. The quality score, which is a numerical value from 0 to 100, includes Leapfrog's standards for preventing medication errors (CPOE), ICU Physician Staffing, Safe Practices, Never Events, and in some cases preventing hospital-acquired conditions such as infections.
"For Children's Hospital Los Angeles to be named one of the safest children's hospitals in the country is testimony to the great work and effort by our dedicated staff of physicians, nurses and quality control team," says Cathy Siegel Weiss, co-chair of the hospital's Board of Trustees. "To receive a high quality score demonstrates our strict adherence to Leapfrog's high safety and quality standards."
"I'm honored to work in a medical facility that is recognized as one of the best children's hospitals in the country," says James E. Stein, MD, associate chief of Surgery and chief medical quality officer at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "This is again a reflection of the culture of our entire staff here at Children's Hospital. We have the best people caring for kids, from the Board of Trustees right through the entire organization. I see it every day and hear it from the families we care for; we just treat kids better."
The Leapfrog Group's annual class of top hospitals was announced Dec. 4 in Baltimore, Md., at its 12th anniversary meeting. In addition to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the other 11 children's hospitals to receive The Leapfrog Group's Top Children's Hospital designation include: Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC; Boston Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass.; Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio; Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota- Saint Paul in St. Paul, Minn.; Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio; Cook Children's Medical Center in Ft. Worth, Texas; Phoenix Children's Hospital in Phoenix, Ariz.; Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del.; Children's Mercy South in Overland Park, Kan.; Monroe Carrell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn.; and the Mary Bridge Children's Hospital & Health Center in Tacoma, Wash.
The Leapfrog Group is a national organization and a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage founded in 2000 to work for improvements in health care safety, quality and affordability. Initially organized by the Business Roundtable, it is now an independent advocacy group working with a broad range of partners, including hospitals and insurers. The annual survey is the only voluntary effort of its kind.
The survey, which launched in 2001, focuses on four critical areas of patient safety: the use of computer physician order entry (CPOE) to prevent medication errors; standards for doing high-risk procedures such as heart surgery; protocols and policies to reduce medical errors and other safe practices recommended by the National Quality Forum; and adequate nurse and physician staffing. In addition, hospitals are measured on their progress in preventing infections and other hospital-acquired conditions and adopting policies on the handling of serious medical errors, among other things.
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