Parrish Medical Center Excels in Patient Safety – Awarded an “A” in Spring 2014 Hospital Safety Score
TITUSVILLE, FLA, May 14, 2014 — Designed to rate how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections, the latest Hospital Safety Score honored Parrish Medical Center with an “A” — its top grade in patient safety. The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading experts on patient safety and is administered by The Leapfrog Group (Leapfrog), an independent industry watchdog. The first and only hospital safety rating to be peer-reviewed in the Journal of Patient Safety, the Score is free to the public and designed to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.
“We are proud to be the only hospital in Brevard, one of 19 in Florida, and one of 249 hospitals nationwide to have earned Leapfrog’s ‘A’ grade distinction in all five cycles,” stated George Mikitarian, president & CEO of Parrish Medical Center. “Achieving our fifth consecutive ‘A’ for patient safety is a testament to the dedication of our more than 1300 care partners (employees, physicians and volunteers) to fulfill our mission to provide ‘healing experiences for everyone all the time.’”
“Safety should come first for our families when we pick a hospital, because errors and infections are common and deadly,” said Leah Binder, president & CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which produces the Hospital Safety Score. “No hospital is perfect, but we congratulate the Board,
clinicians, administration, and staff of Parrish Medical Center for achieving an ‘A’ and showing us that you made the well-being of your patients your top priority.”
Calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in spring 2014, with about 32 percent receiving an “A” grade.
The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, and its website offers a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades.
To see how PMC’s score compares locally and nationally, and to access safety tips for patients and their loved ones, visit the Hospital Safety Score website at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org. Consumers can also go to www.hospitalsafetyscore.org for a free download of the Hospital Safety Score app.
About The Leapfrog Group
The Hospital Safety Score (www.hospitalsafetyscore.org) is an initiative of The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org), a national nonprofit organization using the collective leverage of large purchasers of health care to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality and affordability of health care for Americans. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey allows purchasers to structure their contracts and purchasing to reward the highest performing hospitals. The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 with support from the Business Roundtable and national funders and is now independently operated with support from its purchaser and other members.
About Parrish Medical Center
Parrish Medical Center, located at 951 N. Washington Ave., Titusville, Florida, is a 210-bed, not-for-profit acute care public medical center serving North Brevard County for more than 50 years. The Joint Commission named PMC as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures, recognizing PMC for “exemplary performance in using evidence-based clinical processes that are shown to improve care for certain conditions.” The hospital is the only Brevard County hospital to earn five consecutive “A” safety ratings from the Leapfrog Group, an independent, national not-for-profit organization founded more than a decade ago by the nation’s leading employers and private healthcare experts. PMC has been ranked by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as Central Florida’s No. 1 hospital, America’s No. 5 independent public hospital, and in the top six percent of all U.S. hospitals (186 out of 2,985 U.S. hospitals compared). The medical center has also earned four disease-specific certification gold seals from the Joint Commission in acute coronary syndrome, breast cancer, heart failure and stroke. For more information, visit www.parrishmed.com.
