CALIFORNIA — Ninety-three hospitals in the Golden State were given top safety grades in The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2024 Hospital Safety Grades released Wednesday.
The independent, nonprofit watchdog group assigned safety grades, ranging from “A” to “F,” for 3,000 general hospitals on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents and infections.
In California, hospitals receiving the top letter grade were:
Mills-Peninsula Medical Center – BurlingameMercy General Hospital – SacramentoKaiser Foundation Hospital – RosevilleParadise Valley Hospital – National CityUC San Diego Health Hillcrest – Hillcrest Medical Center – San DiegoSharp Grossmont Hospital – La MesaUCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion – San FranciscoBakersfield Memorial Hospital – BakersfieldSt. Elizabeth Community Hospital – Red BluffSan Gorgonio Memorial Hospital – BanningKaiser Foundation Hospital – South San FranciscoKaiser Foundation Hospital – Santa ClaraKaiser Foundation Hospital – OaklandKaiser Foundation Hospital – San FranciscoUC San Diego Health La Jolla – Jacobs Medical Center and Sulpizio Cardiovascular CenterSt. John’s Regional Medical Center of Oxnard – OxnardSt. Joseph’s Medical Center of Stockton – StocktonParkview Community Hospital Medical Center – RiversideAdventist Health White Memorial – Los AngelesMarian Regional Medical Center – Santa MariaNorthridge Hospital Medical Center-Roscoe Boulevard Campus – NorthridgeAdventist Health Hanford – HanfordRegional Medical Center of San Jose – San JoseValley Presbyterian Hospital – Van NuysWoodland Memorial Hospital – WoodlandDignity Health St. Bernardine Medical Center – San BernadinoNovato Community Hospital – NovatoKaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center – DowneyKaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center – FontanaKaiser Permanente Orange County-Irvine Medical Center – IrvineKaiser Foundation Hospital – ModestoSierra Nevada Memorial Hospital – Grass ValleyEl Camino Hospital Los Gatos – Los GatosSequoia Hospital – Redwood CityPalmdale Regional Medical Center – PalmdaleSharp Chula Vista Medical Center – Chula VistaHoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian – Newport BeachPomona Valley Hospital Medical Center – PomonaFrench Hospital Medical Center – San Luis ObispoAdventist Health Glendale – GlendaleUniversity of California Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center – Los AngelesSutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital – Santa RosaMercy Hospital – Southwest – BakersfieldAdventist Health Ukiah Valley – UkiahEl Camino Hospital – Mountian ViewLoma Linda University Medical Center – Loma LindaSalinas Valley Health Medical Center – SalinasUCI Health – OrangeTorrance Memorial Medical Center – TorranceNorthBay Medical Center – FairfieldLos Angeles General Medical Center – Los AngelesKaiser Permanente Foundation Hospital South Bay – Harbor CityScripps Green Hospital – La JollaWest Anaheim Medical Center – AnaheimStanford Health Care – StanfordMercy Medical Center – MercedUCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights – San FranciscoAdventist Health Selma – SelmaScripps Memorial Hospital of Encinitas – EncinitasKaiser Foundation Hospital – San RafaelKaiser Permanente Zion Medical Center – San DiegoMercy San Juan Medical Center – CarmichaelLos Robles Health System – Los Robles Regional Medical Center -Thousand OaksEisenhower Medical Center – Rancho MirageLa Palma Intercommunity Hospital – La PalmaMontclair Hospital Medical Center – MontclairMethodist Hospital of Sacramento – SacramentoEmanate Health Foothill Presbyterian Hospital – GlendoraKaiser Foundation Hospital – San JoseKaiser Permanente Orange County – Anaheim Medical CenterSt. John’s Hospital Camarillo – CamarilloInland Valley Medical Center – WildomarTwin Cities Community Hospital – TempletonPalomar Medical Center Poway – PowayKaiser Foundation Hospital – South SacramentoNorthBay VacaValley Hospital – VacavilleKaiser Foundation Hospital – Santa RosaKeck Hospital of USC – Los AngelesRancho Springs Medical Center – MurrietaKaiser Foundation Hospital – FresnoGreater El Monte Community Hospital – South El MonteCentinela Hospital Medical Center – InglewoodKaiser Foundation Hospital – MantecaKaiser Foundation Hospital – AntiochShasta Regional Medical Center – ReddingLOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER – MURRIETAMartin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital – Los AngelesUCSF Health – Mission BayKaiser Permanente San Diego Medical Center – San DiegoHoag Hospital Irvine – IrvineKaiser Permanente Ontario Medical Center – OntarioLoma Linda University Medical Center East Campus – Loma Linda
Overall, California had:
76 hospitals that earned “B” grades; 89 hospitals that earned “C” grades; 23 hospitals that earned “D” grades; and 3 hospitals that earned “F” grades.
The Leapfrog Group, which grades hospitals twice a year, also ranked the 10 states with the highest rate of “A” hospitals. Utah tops the list, followed by Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Alaska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina and Maine, respectively.
For the first time this spring, the watchdog ranked the top 25 metropolitan statistical reporting areas according to the number of “A” hospitals. The top three metro areas are Allentown, Pennsylvania; Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
The area encompassing San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara ranked 10th among the top 25 and San Diego, Chula Vista and Carlsbad ranked 18th.
Nationwide, hospitals showed improvements over their fall 2023 performance in both reducing hospital-acquired infections and improving patient experiences, the report said.
Hospital-acquired infections and preventable errors kill about 250,000 people a year in the United States, making patient safety problems the nation’s third-leading cause of death, according to a summary of peer-reviewed research published in the global health care journal BMJ.
Hospital-acquired infections soared to levels not seen since 2016 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that spike, 92 percent of hospitals showed improved performance on at least one of three dangerous infections, the report said.
Central line-associated bloodstream infections were down by 34 percent, and both catheter-associated urinary tract infections and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections decreased by 30 percent.
Despite the improvements, “patient safety remains a crisis-level hazard in health care,” Leapfrog Group president and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release.
“Some hospitals are much better than others at protecting patients from harm, and that’s why we make the Hospital Safety Grade available to the public and why we encourage all hospitals to focus more attention on safety,” Binder said.
Patient experiences have worsened since the pandemic, and while the spring report shows improvement, patients don’t report the same level of confidence they had before the pandemic, according to the report.
Patient experience is measured through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to publicly report how hospital patients measure the care they received.
The five measures are nurse communication, doctor communication, hospital staff responsiveness, communication about medicines and discharge information.
“Patient experience is very difficult to influence without delivering better care, so these findings are encouraging,” Binder said. “We were also pleased to see the decrease in preventable infections, which cause terrible suffering and sometimes death. When we look at these positive trends, we see lives saved — and that is gratifying.”
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