In 2017, there were 460 hospitals across the nation that achieved the Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award. On average, 134,568 patient safety events could have been avoided* if all hospitals performed similarly to hospitals performing better than expected on each of 13 patient safety indicators evaluated by Healthgrades.
This distinction places an elite group of hospital recipients within the top 10% of all hospitals evaluated for their superior performance in safeguarding patients from serious, potentially preventable complications during their hospital stays. Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients were determined by evaluating the occurrence of observed incidents and expected performance for 13 Patient Safety Indicators as defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
According to the Healthgrades analysis outlined in a related infographic, hospitals that received an award in patient safety were always equally or more likely than non-recipient hospitals to exhibit superior outcomes in specialty areas (including joint replacement, orthopedics, spinal surgery, cardiology and pulmonary care), and often more likely to achieve a 5-star rating in in-hospital mortality and complication outcomes, as compared to non-recipient hospitals.
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