Stanford Hospital & Clinics Receives Leapfrog Top Hospital Designation for 2009
DECEMBER 3, 2009
For “delivering the best quality care in the nation while attaining the highest levels of efficiency,” Stanford Hospital & Clinics (SHC) today was named among the country’s top hospitals by The Leapfrog Group, an organization formed by a group of large employers in 2000 to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality and affordability of health care for Americans.
Kim Pardini-Kiely (second from left) and Kevin Tabb (second from right) were presented with SHC's award as one of the nation's top hospitals. Also pictured are Leah Binder (far left) and Dave Knowlton (far right) of the Leapfrog Group.
Stanford was one of 45 hospitals nationwide to receive this recognition out of the more than 1,200 reviewed. Through its annual Leapfrog Hospital Survey, hospitals across the country are rated on a range of quality and safety practices that all hospitals should follow.
The award was accepted today in Washington, D.C. by Kevin Tabb, MD, SHC Chief Medical Officer and Kim Pardini-Kiely, SHC Vice President for Quality & Effectiveness.
"We are very proud to be recognized on this prestigious list of top health care institutions in our country," said SHC President and CEO Martha Marsh. "This is a tribute to the hard work of our physicians and staff who commit themselves every day to providing the highest quality of care and service to our patients and to effectively using resources. At such an important time in our national dialogue about health care, this award highlights the essential role Stanford fulfills as an academic medical center that leads innovation on multiple fronts,” she said.
Forty-five hospitals, including 34 urban, eight children’s and three rural hospitals, were named 2009 Leapfrog Top Hospitals, based on results from The Leapfrog Hospital Survey. The annual survey (available online at www.leapfroggroup.org) is the only national, public comparison of hospitals on key issues including mortality rates for certain common procedures, infection rates, safety practices, and measures of efficiency.
“This award represents the critically important intersection of patient safety and the use of 
information technology to improve patient care,” said Tabb.
Leah Binder, CEO, The Leapfrog Group, said that regardless of what happens to healthcare reform, the hospitals honored in 2009 are the future. “This year’s class of Top Hospitals not only hits the mark in areas such as medication error prevention and preventing ICU deaths, but they also use their resources wisely, providing excellent and efficient outcomes for patients,” she said.
Hospitals were required to fulfill the following criteria to be considered for top hospital recognition:
• Fully meet Leapfrog standards for implementing computer physician order entry (CPOE) systems (that have been shown to reduce medication errors by up to 85%), and for passing Leapfrog’s test of their system;
• Fully meet stringent performance standards for complex, high-risk procedures (such as heart bypass surgery) done in that particular hospital;
• Fully meet standards for staffing the ICU, shown to reduce mortality by 40% or more;
• Score in the top decile in the country for efficiency – scored by the Leapfrog Hospital Recognition Program incorporating quality outcomes, length of stay, readmission rates, and incidence of hospital acquired conditions and infections. The efficiency standard applies to heart bypass surgery, heart angioplasty, heart attack and pneumonia patients.
“This recognition by Leapfrog is the culmination of years of hard work at Stanford Medical Center,” said Norm Rizk, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “It reflects a shared commitment by faculty physicians of the Stanford School of Medicine and leadership at Stanford Hospital to make this a priority and invest significant, sustained effort toward accomplishment of long-term goals.”
“We know from research that Leapfrog-reporting hospitals are among the best in the country, and they demonstrate through Leapfrog that they set ambitious goals for their performance,” said Binder, pointing to a study by Ashish Jha, MD, at Harvard Medical School, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Joint Commission in 2008, concluding that Leapfrog hospitals have lower mortality and better quality of care than those that do not report to Leapfrog.
“Not all hospitals make the top hospital list, but every hospital that participates in Leapfrog deserves credit. They are fundamentally changing the hospital market into one that is highly responsive to the quality, cost and value needs of consumers and large buyers of health care,” said David Knowlton, Chair of The Leapfrog Group and President and CEO of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute.
The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org) uses 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 Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 by the Business Roundtable and is supported by its members, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and other sources.
The Leapfrog Hospital Survey is the gold standard for comparing hospitals’ performance on the national standards of safety, quality, and efficiency that are most relevant to consumers and purchasers of care. Hospitals that participate in The Leapfrog Hospital Survey achieve hospital-wide improvements that translate into millions of lives and dollars saved. Leapfrog’s purchaser members use Survey results to inform their employees and purchasing strategies.
About Stanford Hospital & Clinics
Stanford Hospital & Clinics is known worldwide for advanced treatment of complex disorders in areas such as cardiovascular care, cancer treatment, neurosciences, surgery, and organ transplants. Consistently ranked among the top institutions in the U.S. News & World Report annual list of “America’s Best Hospitals,” Stanford Hospital & Clinics is internationally recognized for translating medical breakthroughs into the care of patients. It is part of the Stanford University Medical Center, along with the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. For more information, visit http://stanfordmedicine.org.