Kent Hospital, South County Hospital land HealthGrades awards

WARWICK – Kent Hospital landed the 2012 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award and and South County Hospital landed the advocacy group’s Outstanding Patient Experience Award.

The patient safety award, which was based on a recent HealthGrades study, indicates that Kent Hospital’s patient safety ratings are in the top 5 percent of U.S. hospitals. Kent was one of 263 hospitals nationwide to receive this designation.

“Patient safety is at the heart of all that we do everyday,” Sandra L. Coletta, Kent Hospital president and CEO, said in prepared remarks.

“Through the work of the Michael J. Woods Institute to the frontline work of the clinicians and staff, we must be continually vigilant. We are responsible for so many lives and because we are given such an important mission we must always strive to be better.”

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The HealthGrades report found that Medicare patients at Patient Safety Excellence Award hospitals were nearly 48 percent less likely to experience one of 13 preventable safety accidents when compared to hospitals that ranked in the nation’s bottom 5 percent.

HealthGrades analyzed 40 million hospitalization records from 5,000 U.S. hospitals to determine the 263 2012 Patient Safety Excellence Award winners. Participation in the study was not voluntary and hospitals could not choose to opt out of the analysis.

The study analyzed the following patient safety events:

  • Death in procedures where mortality is usually very low
  • Pressure or bed sores acquired in hospital
  • Death following a serious complication after surgery
  • Foreign object left in body during a procedure
  • Collapsed lung due to procedure or surgery in or around chest
  • Catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at hospital
  • Hip fracture following surgery
  • Hemorrhage or hematoma resulting from procedure or surgery
  • Electrolyte and fluid imbalance following surgery
  • Respiratory failure following surgery
  • Deep blood clots in lungs or legs following surgery
  • Sepsis following surgery
  • Breakdown of abdominal incision site

Wakefield-based South County Hospital was one of 332 U.S. hospitals to receive HealthGrades’ 2012 Outstanding Patient Experience Award.

The award winners were chosen based on the results of the hospital consumer assessment of health care providers – a standardized 27-question survey given to patients a few days after leaving the hospital.

The survey measures patient experience by asking patients about physician communication, nursing communication, communication about medications, responsiveness of nursing services, adequacy of discharge planning, pain management and hospital cleanliness.

The results are tallied and the hospital receives a score. The top scoring hospitals received the Outstanding Patient Experience Award distinction.

Nationwide, only 47 hospitals received both the Outstanding Patient Experience Award and the Patient Safety Excellence Award.

To view the full report, visit www.healthgrades.com.

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