Uniontown Hospital Applause
Uniontown Hospital is among 38 Pennsylvania hospitals receiving an A in hospital safety, according to new grades released by The Leapfrog Group.
The hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.
“Errors and infections in hospitals are the third leading cause of death in America, and people deserve to know which of their hospitals are best at preventing them,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a press release.
Medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections are taken into account by Leapfrog when calculating the grades. The goal of the rankings is to determine a patient’s risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital.
Leapfrog assigns A,B,C,D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes 27 measures that are taken together to produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.
The group uses performance measures from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions.
The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.