Nearly 34 percent of California hospitals received top grades in protecting patient safety, according to the spring 2023 hospital safety grades released Wednesday by The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog.
The average risk of contracting deadly infections had spiked during the pandemic.
With one-third of Golden State hospitals earning Leapfrog’s top grade, California is 12th in the nation when it comes to the percentage of “A”-grade hospitals. In the rankings last fall, California placed 25th.
The Leapfrog Group uses an academic grading scale with five letter grades to score nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide on more than 30 measures of patient safety. Leapfrog said its hospital rating system is the only one in the country focusing solely on a hospital’s ability to protect patients from preventable errors.
In California, 95 hospitals received an A, 68 hospitals received a B, 93 hospitals received a C and two, in Southern California, received a failing “F” safety rating.
Five Bay Area hospitals received Leapfrog’s highest safety ratings: El Camino Hospital, Mountain View and Los Gatos centers; Good Samaritan Hospital, San Jose; and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals in San Jose and Santa Clara.
Three Santa Clara County hospitals received “B” ratings: the Kaiser Foundation San Jose Hospital, San Jose’s Regional Medical Center and Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto.
All three hospitals in the Santa Clara County Healthcare System – O’Connor Hospital and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose and the St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy – received a “C” safety rating.
A total of 24 Bay Area hospitals received an “A” rating
California Pacific Medical Center – Mission Bernal Campus, San Francisco
Chinese Hospital, San Francisco
Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, Martinez
El Camino Hospital, Mountain View
El Camino Hospital Los Gatos
Good Samaritan Hospital of San Jose
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Antioch
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Fremont
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Oakland
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Richmond
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – San Leandro
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – San Rafael
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Santa Clara
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Santa Rosa
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – South San Francisco
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Vallejo
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Walnut Creek
Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, Burlingame
Montclair Hospital Medical Center
Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, San Francisco
Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City
St. Mary’s Medical Center, San Francisco
UCSF Health – Mission Bay, San Francisco
UCSF at Parnassus Heights
Eight hospitals in the Bay Area that received a “B” rating
Eden Medical Center, Castro Valley
Kaiser Foundation Hospital Redwood City
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – San Jose
Regional Medical Center of San Jose
San Leandro Hospital
Sonoma Valley Hospital
Stanford Health Care, Palo Alto
Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley, Pleasanton
These 16 Bay Area hospitals received a “C” rating
AHMC Seton Medical Center, Daly City
Alameda Hospital
Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Oakland
Alta Bates Summit Medical Center – Alta Bates Campus, Berkeley
California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco
Dominican Hospital, Santa Cruz
John Muir Health Medical Center Concord
John Muir Medical Center Walnut Creek Campus
O’Connor Hospital, San Jose
Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
San Ramon Regional Medical Center
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose
St. Louise Regional Hospital, Gilroy
Sutter Delta Medical Center, Antioch
Washington Hospital Healthcare System, Fremont
Wilma Chan Highland Hospital Campus, Oakland
Four hospitals in the Bay Area received “D” ratings
San Mateo Medical Center
St. Rose Hospital, Hayward
Watsonville Community Hospital
Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center
High rates of three health care-associated infections, or HAIs, “should stop hospitals in their tracks,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a press release, noting that “infections like these can be life for death for some patients.”
“We recognize the tremendous strain the pandemic put on hospitals and their workforce, but alarming findings like these indicate hospitals must recommit to patient safety and build more resilience,” Binder said.
The problematic infections are Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA; central line-associated bloodstream infections, or CLABSI; and catheter-associated urinary tract infections, or CAUTI. When compared to rankings that covered the period immediately before the COVID-19 outbreak, the analysis found an increased infection ratio for all three infections.
“The spring 2023 Safety Grade data spotlights how hospital responses to the pandemic led to a decline in patient safety and HAI management,”said Binder.
Three decades of journalism experience, as a writer and editor with Gannett, Knight-Ridder and Lee newspapers, as a business journal editor and publisher and as a weekly newspaper editor in Scotts Valley and Gilroy; with the Weeklys group since 2017. Recipient of several first-place writing and editing awards, California News Publishers Association.
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