Healthgrades names top hospitals for patient experience, patient safety

Nearly 1,000 hospitals were named either top hospitals for patient experience or patient safety on Tuesday by Denver-based healthcare ratings company Healthgrades.

Nearly 1,000 hospitals were named either top hospitals for patient experience or patient safety on Tuesday by Denver-based healthcare ratings company Healthgrades.

For its first list, Healthgrades gave 2015 Outstanding Patient Experience Awards to 452 organizations, basing the awards on the scores providers earned on their Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems surveys, which polled patients who visited the hospitals in 2013.

According to Healthgrades, only the top 15 percent earned recognition, though the results did vary by region and hospital type. California, Texas and Wisconsin saw the most hospitals score awards.

See the full list of Patient Experience winners.

“Hospitals need to better understand shifting drivers of satisfaction in diverse patient populations across different hospital settings,” said Chief Strategy Officer Evan Marks in a statement.

Meanwhile, Healthgrades dubbed 467 hospitals top performers for their scores related to patient safety, gleaned by examining claims data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on hospital stays from 2011 to 2013.

The top 10 percent earned 2015 Patient Safety Excellence Awards, Healthgrades said.

See the full list of Patient Safety winners.

According to Healthgrades, 134,000 patient safety events could have been avoided between 2011 and 2013 if U.S. hospitals focused on improving their performance on core patient safety indicators from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Indicators include include death following a serious complication after surgery, death in procedures where mortality is usually very low, hospital-acquired pressure sores, collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery, catheter-related bloodstream infections, electrolyte and fluid imbalance following surgery and foreign objects left in the body during a surgery, among others.

Click the links above to see the full list of winners.

Twitter: @HenryPowderly