Mat-Su Regional Earns an ‘A’ for Patient Safety From National Patient Safety Watchdog
11/23/2022
PALMER – Mat-Su Regional Medical Center earned an ‘A’ for quality care and patient safety on its fall report card from the Leapfrog Group, a national organization that monitors and measures patient safety at hospitals.
The 2022 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, released November 16, rates hospitals on how well they protect patients from errors, injuries, accidents and infections, and assigns a grade – from A through F – to hospitals across the country. Ratings are based exclusively on hospitals’ prevention of medical errors and other harms to patients in their care.
Mat-Su Regional is the only hospital in Alaska to earn an ‘A’ safety grade from Leapfrog for fall 2022.
“We are excited to earn our second ‘A’ grade from Leapfrog,” said Jen Moore, chief quality officer for Mat-Su Regional – noting the hospital was awarded an ‘A’ from Leapfrog in 2021. “This demonstrates the culture of patient safety and quality care that we have been steadily building over the past decade.”
An ‘A’ safety grade is an elite designation, according to Leapfrog Group President Leah Binder. “I applaud the hospital leadership and workforce for their strong commitment to safety and transparency,” Binder said. “An ‘A’ Safety Grade is a sign that hospitals are continuously evaluating their performance, so that they can best protect patients. Your hospital team should be extremely proud of their dedication and achievement.”
“Quality care is a core value – the central focus of our mission,” said Dave Wallace, Mat-Su Regional’s chief executive. “This recognition by the Leapfrog Group is a reflection of our entire team’s dedication and commitment to patient safety. Everything else we do is built on the foundation of providing quality care for our community.”
Leapfrog uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,700 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.
Moore, who has worked in the hospital’s quality department since 2012, said Mat-Su Regional has made significant strides in quality improvements over the years, earning quality awards and accreditations. “We earned this recognition from the Leapfrog Group by developing a culture of safety and implementing evidence-based protocols that increase healthy outcomes for patients,” she said. “It really is what we focus on every day.”
Mat-Su Regional was the first hospital in Alaska to earn accreditation as a chest pain center from the American College of Cardiology. It is also recently earned accredited as an Advanced Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission—an accrediting body that sets national safety standards for hospitals.
“We are extremely proud of our medical providers and our staff for their hard work and dedication to ongoing quality improvements that benefit our community,” Moore said.
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