How many hospitals earned a Leapfrog and Healthgrades safety award? 142, that's all

Image of Hill Country Memorial Hospital from hillcountrymemorial.com.

Two recently released rankings of ‘safest hospitals’ list more than 1,200 between them, but only 142 appear on both The Leapfrog Group’s Spring 2015 list of ‘A’ hospitals and Healthgrades list of 2015 Excellence in Patient Safety hospitals.

Leapfrog uses and mix of data sources, including info from its own surveys, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control. It also uses data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Healthgrades only uses AHRQ data, awarding hospitals with patient safety awards based on their average performance between 2011 and 2013. Leapfrog, on the other hand, updates its grades twice a year, and hospitals can move up or down each time the rankings are updated.

It’s interesting that two lists praising hundreds hospitals as being the safest in the country share only 142 between them. Healthgrades donned 494; Leapfrog gave out 782 ‘A’ grades.

Hospital ranking lists have been under scrutiny for a while, but a March study in HealthAffairs brought the issue out again, suggesting that the differences in methodology may confuse potential patients more than they help.

As for the financial effect, patient safety is directly tied to Medicare reimbursements. CMS has fined more than 700 this year for medical errors and hospital-acquired conditions. At the same time, patients may choose to avoid treatment at certain hospitals with poor quality ratings.

The below list shows the 142 hospitals that earned an ‘A’ from Leapfrog for Spring 2015 and won a 2015 Patient safety Excellence Award from Healthgrades.

Twitter: @HenryPowderly