Seventeen Kaiser Permanente hospitals – 10 in Northern California and seven in Southern California – have been named 2012 "Top Hospitals" by the Leapfrog Group, an honor that rewards medical centers for their outstanding success in areas such as reducing infection rates, safety practices, mortality rates for common procedures and measures of efficiency.
The 17 Kaiser Permanente hospitals represent better than one out of every four on Leapfrog's list of urban "Top Hospitals." Out of nearly 1,000 urban hospitals that completed the Leapfrog survey and were considered for the award, only 67 were named "Top Hospitals."
"Our prominence among Leapfrog's top hospitals exemplifies our continuous improvement and our commitment to evidence-based care and personalized service by our physicians, nurses and clinicians," said Jed Weissberg, MD, senior vice president, Quality and Care Delivery Excellence, Kaiser Permanente. "This honor also highlights our dedication to providing our members easy and convenient access to the caregivers and support services they need. Our leadership in the field of technological innovation — especially our electronic health record — promotes efficiency, quality and patient safety."
To be included among Leapfrog's "Top Hospitals," medical centers, among other criteria, must have fulfilled stringent performance standards for high-risk procedures (such as heart bypass surgery) and fully met Leapfrog's standards for implementing computer physician order entry systems.
"At Kaiser Permanente, our physicians, nurses, managers and front-line staff are committed to providing high-quality patient-centered care, whether it is in our hospitals or through illness prevention efforts," said Amy Compton-Phillips, MD, associate executive director of Quality with The Permanente Federation, a national organization representing the eight Permanente Medical Groups. "Our high marks not only acknowledge the dedicated work of our care teams, but also demonstrate Kaiser Permanente's continuous quality improvement strategy that applies best practices to lead to better and safer care."
The "Top Hospitals" honor is the most recent in a string of accolades given to Kaiser Permanente hospitals and health plans. In the past few months:
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Kaiser Permanente Medicare and Commercial health plans received No. 1 rankings for 2012 in 29 effectiveness-of-care measures, far more than any other health plan in the nation.
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Kaiser Permanente's Medicare health plans received a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the highest ranking possible, in seven of its eight geographical regions.
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Kaiser Permanente was rated by the National Committee for Quality Assurance as having the three highest-ranked Medicare health plans in the nation.
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