Kaiser Permanente Redwood City wins nat'l. patient safety honor

Kaiser Permanente’s Redwood City Medical Center has received an “A” grade – the highest rating possible -- for patient safety from The Leapfrog Group.

“Our physicians and staff deploy advanced technology — with the highest safety standards — while delivering exceptional care with warmth and compassion,” said Dr. William Firtch, Physician-in-Chief, Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center, “Receiving high marks from The Leapfrog Group is a testament to Kaiser Permanente’s commitment to quality health care and patient safety.”

Also earning an “A” grade in San Mateo County was Kaiser Permanente’s South San Francisco Medical Center.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits, released its fall 2017 Hospital Safety Grades after examining publicly available data on patient injuries, medical and medication errors and infections at U.S. hospitals, which were then assigned letter grades for their safety records.

Less than one-third of more than 2,600 hospitals surveyed in the U.S. received an “A” rating in the biannual report which began in 2012.

In all, nine Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California received “A” grades from Leapfrog for fall 2017: Fresno, Modesto, Redwood City, Roseville, San Francisco, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, South San Francisco and Vallejo.

Developed under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 30 national performance measures to produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade methodology has been peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.