| Does your hospital have
safe practices?
Virginia Business
November 2006
It seems logical that hospitals that routinely employ
safe practices would be better able to handle the demands
of an emergency. The nonprofit Leapfrog Group, which
includes private- and public-sector health-care purchasers
and suppliers of health-related products and services,
compiles this information and calculates a Safe Practice
Score. It's based on hospital responses to survey questions
gauging whether a hospital has implemented 27 procedures
to reduce preventable medical mistakes. These include
issues such as hiring adequate nursing staff, preventing
infections and medication errors, avoiding complications,
and ensuring communication between health-care workers,
doctors and patients.
In early October, 16 of the state's
hospitals received scores reflecting full implementation
of Leapfrog's recommended quality practices. Eights others
had made good progress and eight others were showing
a "good early stage
effort" to implement the practices.
The Virginia Business Coalition on Health (VBCH), an
outgrowth of the Hampton Roads Health Coalition, seeks
to make this and other information on safety and quality
available to its employer members. For more information,
visit the organization's Web sites at www.leapfroggroup.org/cp and www.myvbch.org/.
On the Leapfrog Group's site, consumers can search by
city, state, hospital name or within a certain radius
of their ZIP code. Data on hospitals found within that
search criteria will be listed there.
Hospitals receiving the highest Safe Practice Scores:
- Alleghany Regional Hospital, Low Moor
- Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital, Newport News
- Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters, Norfolk
- CJW Medical Center, Richmond
- Lewis-Gale Medical Center, Salem
- Montgomery Regional Hospital, Blacksburg
- Pulaski Community Hospital, Pulaski
- Retreat Hospital, Richmond
- Riverside Regional Medical Center, Newport News
- Sentara Bayside Hospital, Virginia Beach
- Sentara Careplex Hospital, Hampton
- Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk
- Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Norfolk
- Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital, Virginia Beach
- Sentara Williamsburg Community Hospital, Williamsburg
- Winchester Medical Center, Winchester
|
