Ochsner hospitals get good grades for patient safety

Thirteen Ochsner Health facilities, including Ochsner St. Mary in Morgan City and includingfive partner facilities, earned an "A" Spring 2021 Hospital Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group, a national distinction recognizing the health system’s achievements protecting patients from harm and meeting the highest safety standards in the United States.
Ochsner hospitals and partner facilities earning this honor include:
—Ochsner Baptist – A Campus of Ochsner Medical Center
—Ochsner Medical Center – Baton Rouge
—Ochsner Medical Center – Hancock
—Ochsner Medical Center – New Orleans
—Ochsner Medical Center – Northshore
—Ochsner St. Mary
—Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center
—Ochsner Lafayette General Orthopaedic Hospital
—Leonard A. Chabert Medical Center (Ochsner Partner)
—St. Tammany Health System (Ochsner Partner)
—Singing River Health System – Pascagoula Hospital (Ochsner Partner)
—Singing River Health System – Ocean Springs Hospital (Ochsner Partner)
—Singing River Health System – Gulfport (Ochsner Partner)
“That so many Ochsner Health and partner hospitals achieved an ‘A’ this spring is a testament to our team’s dedication to patient safety,” said Richard Guthrie, MD, chief quality officer, Ochsner Health. “Leapfrog’s commitment to creating transparency through data serves the community and helps inform and empower patients. Despite the challenges our teams faced in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our people continued to deliver high quality care to the patients we serve.”
The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization committed to healthcare quality and safety.
The Safety Grade is a letter assigned to all general hospitals across the country and updated every six months, assessing how well hospitals prevent medical errors and other harms to patients. It is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospitals’ prevention of medical errors and other harms to patients.
“An ‘A’ safety grade is an elite designation that the communities you serve should feel good about,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “The past year has been extraordinarily difficult for hospitals, but Ochsner hospitals and partner facilities show it is possible to keep a laser focus on patients and their safety, no matter what it takes.”
Developed under the guidance of a national expert panel, the Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed, fully transparent, and free to the public.
Ochsner’s patient safety goals of “Target Zero” focus on creating a hospital setting with zero patient harm. To learn more about Ochsner’s quality and safety efforts, please visit www.ochsner.org/quality. To make an appointment at Ochsner, please visit www.ochsner.org/info.