Does your hospital have safe practices?

Virginia Business
November 2006

It seems logical that hospitals that routinely employ safe practices would be better able to handle the demands of an emergency. The nonprofit Leapfrog Group, which includes private- and public-sector health-care purchasers and suppliers of health-related products and services, compiles this information and calculates a Safe Practice Score. It's based on hospital responses to survey questions gauging whether a hospital has implemented 27 procedures to reduce preventable medical mistakes. These include issues such as hiring adequate nursing staff, preventing infections and medication errors, avoiding complications, and ensuring communication between health-care workers, doctors and patients.

In early October, 16 of the state's hospitals received scores reflecting full implementation of Leapfrog's recommended quality practices. Eights others had made good progress and eight others were showing a "good early stage effort" to implement the practices.

The Virginia Business Coalition on Health (VBCH), an outgrowth of the Hampton Roads Health Coalition, seeks to make this and other information on safety and quality available to its employer members. For more information, visit the organization's Web sites at www.leapfroggroup.org/cp and www.myvbch.org/.

On the Leapfrog Group's site, consumers can search by city, state, hospital name or within a certain radius of their ZIP code. Data on hospitals found within that search criteria will be listed there.

Hospitals receiving the highest Safe Practice Scores:
- Alleghany Regional Hospital, Low Moor
- Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital, Newport News
- Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters, Norfolk
- CJW Medical Center, Richmond
- Lewis-Gale Medical Center, Salem
- Montgomery Regional Hospital, Blacksburg
- Pulaski Community Hospital, Pulaski
- Retreat Hospital, Richmond
- Riverside Regional Medical Center, Newport News
- Sentara Bayside Hospital, Virginia Beach
- Sentara Careplex Hospital, Hampton
- Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk
- Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Norfolk
- Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital, Virginia Beach
- Sentara Williamsburg Community Hospital, Williamsburg
- Winchester Medical Center, Winchester