All five Kane County’s hospitals have earned a high grades in Leapfrog’s spring 2016 Hospital Safety Score.

The grades, released Monday (April 25, 2016), show three A’s and two B’s on Kane County hospitals’ report cards.

“When we talk about patient safety, we’re really talking about how hospitals and other health care organizations protect their patients from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections,” Leapfrog says on its website. “While many hospitals are good at keeping their patients safe, some hospitals aren’t.”

The hospitals in Kane County were among 2,500 across the U.S. that were ranked according to a letter grade scoring system that allows consumers to quickly assess the safety of their local hospital, and choose the safest hospital to seek care.

You can read more about Kane County hospitals and their safety ratings below.

According to the state rankings compiled by Leapfrog, Illinois is 15th best in the nation. Statistics show 115 Illinois hospitals, with 50 earning an “A” ranking. That’s more A-rated hospitals than any other state but Texas and California. Illinois is the top-rated among states with 100 or more total hospitals.

In a Tuesday news release, Rush-Copley President and CEO Barry C. Finn said Rush-Copley is “pleased to be recognized again with this honor by Leapfrog.” The hospital has won the “A” safety rating each year since 2012.

“Rush-Copley’s team continues to raise the bar for patient safety and patient experience – from process improvements to empowering front line staff – to provide the highest level of care for our community,” Finn said.

About the Score

Hospital Safety Scores are assigned to more than 2,500 hospitals across the nation twice annually. The Hospital Safety Score “is becoming the gold standard measure of patient safety,” according to Leapfrog an cited recently in MSNBC, The New York Times, and AARP The Magazine.

The Hospital Safety Score uses national performance measures from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the American Hospital Association’s Annual Survey and Health Information Technology Supplement.

Taken together, those performance measures produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors. The Hospital Safety Score includes 28 measures, all currently in use by national measurement and reporting programs. The Hospital Safety Score methodology has been peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.

How to Use the Score

The Hospital Safety Score grades hospitals on the very basics of medical care, such as handwashing, entering prescriptions through a computer, and the availability of nurses. So no matter the reason for a hospital visit, patient safety should be your number one priority. Visit Choosing a Safe Hospital for more tips on making this important decision.

SOURCE: www.hospitalsafetyscore.org/

Kane County Hospitals

Advocate Sherman Hospital

• 1425 N. Randall Road, Elgin, IL 60123-2300
• View the full Score

Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital

• 300 Randall Road, Geneva, IL 60134
• View the full Score