Norwood Hospital Earns 'A' Grade

(From Norwood Hospital)

Norwood Hospital was awarded an “A” grade in the Fall 2013 update to the Hospital Safety Score, which rates how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections.

The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading experts on patient safety and is administered by The Leapfrog Group (Leapfrog), an independent industry watchdog.

The first and only hospital safety rating to be analyzed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Patient Safety, the Score is designed to give the public information they can use to protect themselves and their families. All ten acute care hospitals in the Steward Health Care System (Steward) received “A” grade from Leapfrog.

 “Norwood Hospital is honored to again be recognized by The Leapfrog Group with the top score for patient safety, which is always our number one priority,” said Emily Holliman, Norwood Hospital president. “I am so proud of the ongoing commitment of our physicians and patient care staff to provide our patients with the highest level of quality care in a safe and supportive environment right in their own community.”

Calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,500 general U.S. hospitals were assigned scores this Fall.

 “As patients begin to take a more active role in selecting where to receive health care, it has never been more important to focus on hospital safety and transparency. The ‘A’ hospitals, including Norwood Hospital, are helping us to raise the standards of health care nationwide,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog. “We offer our congratulations and hope Norwood Hospital will continue to strive for an ever-increasing level of excellence in patient safety.”

 Acute care hospitals in the Steward Health Care System that received an “A” include: Saint Anne’s in Fall River, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Norwood Hospital, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, Merrimack Valley Hospital in Haverhill, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Quincy Medical Center. Leapfrog does not evaluate specialty hospitals, such as New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton, which specializes in long-term acute care.

“We are incredibly proud of this award because it recognizes our ongoing commitment to health care quality and patient safety at Norwood Hospital and across the Steward system,” said Justine Carr, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Steward.  “In the past three years, Steward has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new services, new physicians, significant infrastructure improvements and new clinical technology to improve the quality of care and patient experience in our hospitals.”