St. Joseph Medical Center announced today that it is a recipient of the Healthgrades 2019 Patient Safety Excellence Award. This distinction places St. Joseph Medical Center among the top 5% of all short-term acute care hospitals reporting patient safety data as evaluated by Healthgrades, the leading online resource for information about physicians and hospitals.
St. Joseph Medical Center is a member of Prime Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest hospital systems with 45 hospitals in 14 states. Prime Healthcare has more Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients for four consecutive years (2016-2019) than any other health system in the country.
“We are proud to recognize the recipients of the 2019 Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award, which shines a spotlight on the hospitals that are preventing the occurrence of serious, potentially avoidable complications, for patients during their hospital stay,” said Brad Bowman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Healthgrades. “We applaud these hospitals and their commitment to providing the best possible care for every patient.”
During the study period (2015 to 2017), Healthgrades 2019 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient hospitals demonstrated excellent performance in safety provided for patients in the Medicare population, as measured by objective outcomes (risk-adjusted patient safety indicator rates) for 14 patient safety indicators defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
“Our recent awards including the Healthgrades 2019 Patient Safety Excellence Award demonstrates the tremendous commitment and expertise of our caregivers,” said Jodi Fincher, CEO of St. Joseph Medical Center. “We take patient safety very seriously to earn our patients’ trust every day. Thank you to our physicians, nurses, technicians, volunteers and staff who collaborate to consistently provide high-quality care to patients and families in South Kansas City and the wider Kansas City area. We are proud of this achievement.”
Healthgrades found that patients treated in hospitals receiving the Patient Safety Excellence Award, as compared to patients at non-recipients hospitals, were on average*:
- 55.9% less likely to experience an accidental cut, puncture, perforation or hemorrhage during medical care.
- 50.9% less likely to experience a collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery in or around the chest.
- 64.4% less likely to experience pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital.
- 57% less likely to experience catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at the hospital.
If all hospitals in the country performed at the level of award recipients for each of the 14 Patient Safety Indicators, 127,667 patient safety events could have been avoided.*
In addition to Healthgrades, St. Joseph Medical Center has excelled at passing stringent audits with honors from The Joint Commission, the Leapfrog Group, the American Heart Association, Women’s Choice Award, and many more re-certifications for acute-care and specialty care services across the country.
View Healthgrades hospital quality methodologies.
*Statistics are calculated from Healthgrades Patient Safety Ratings and Excellence Award methodology which is based primarily on AHRQ technical specifications (Version 5e and 2018) to MedPAR data for years 2015 through 2017 and represent 3-year estimates for Medicare patients only.