Local hospitals graded on safety

ROANOKE, Va.- – A new report is out with a look at local hospital safety. According to Leapfrog, an organization that advocates for transparency, the grades are based on national performance measures.
     
Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades assigns a letter grade ranging from an A to an F for general acute care hospitals twice a year.

Leapfrog gave Lewis Gale Medical Center in Salem top marks. For the fall, they received an A for their safety practices.
    
That's a jump from the spring when they received a C. Hospital administrators say best practices were put in place to improve their grade.     

"We use best practice around the catheters and how we insert them and care for them and how we remove them. We use best practices when it comes to antimicrobial therapy or antibiotics. We use best practice in the way that we use techniques that our surgeons use in our operating rooms. And the way that we teach our patients on what to expect with a procedure. So we integrate best practices into everything that we do," said Lisa Wojciechowski-VP Quality / Risk Management. 

Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital received a "C" while their medical center in the New River Valley received an "A"

STATEMENT ABOUT LEAPFROG SCORES FROM DR. JONATHAN GLEASON, VICE PRESIDENT OF CLINICAL ADVANCEMENT, CARILION CLINIC 
 
Carilion New River Valley Medical Center received an "A" grade. Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital received a "B" rating.  Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital received a "C" grade.  
 
Carilion Clinic's number one priority is patient safety.  We have a strong quality and patient safety team, equipped with all forms of technology to help us deliver the excellent care that our community expects and deserves. We are entirely committed to eliminating all forms of preventable harm, and to providing world-class medical care in western Virginia.
 
These grades are drawn from complex calculations that reflect outcomes data from years prior. More recent data would show that the number of Healthcare Acquired Infections and other indicators of quality are significantly better than what is being reported in these grades. We are improving every single day.
 
The latest Leapfrog grades are just one tool of many that patients can consider when making health care decisions such as choosing a hospital. U.S. News and World Report's ratings are also a useful tool. This past August, they recognized Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital as one of the top three hospitals in the state. Additionally, they recognized the hospital as one of only 48 nationwide, and the only one in Virginia, to be rated 'high performing' in all nine surgical procedures and chronic conditions reviewed, putting us in the top 1 percent of hospitals evaluated.
 
Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital is our region's largest referral hospital, and the region's only Level-1 Trauma Center. We regularly receive the sickest patients from 38 hospitals - those in need of more acute care due to their conditions or the complexity of their cases. 
 

Other Grades Include:

Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital-               B
LewisGale Hospital-Montgomery-                   B
Carilion New River Valley Medical Center-     A
LewisGale Hospital - Alleghany-                     A
Memorial Hospital of Martinsville-                   C