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Houston Medical Center Recognized Nationally for Patient Safety

Houston Medical Center Among Top Five Percent in the Nation for Patient Safety

Houston Medical Center has been awarded the HealthGrades® 2009 Patient Safety Excellence AwardTM, one of only 242 hospitals throughout the nation to receive this award, comprising the top five percent of hospitals in the United States. These hospitals represent an elite group that has demonstrated performance in patient safety at a level higher than that of their peers. This is the third year in a row that Houston Medical Center has been recognized by the nation's leading independent healthcare ratings company- HealthGrades®-for its award-winning patient safety initiatives.

"We are pleased to be a recipient of the HealthGrades® 2009 Patient Safety Excellence AwardTM. This award, presented by a national, independent firm, validates that the initiatives and efforts undertaken each day by our staff and our physicians create a safe hospital environment for our community, as we strive to provide quality medical care," said Grady W. (Skip) Philips, III, President and Chief Executive Officer for Houston Healthcare. "We are pleased our efforts are being recognized by the healthcare industry and community."

The sixth annual HealthGrades® Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study applies methodology developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to identify the incident rates of 15 patient safety indicators among Medicare patients at virtually all of the nation's nearly 5,000 nonfederal hospitals. Additionally, HealthGrades applied its methodology using 12 patient safety indicators to identify the best-performing hospitals, or Patient Safety Excellence AwardTM Hospitals, which represent the top five percent of all U.S. hospitals. HealthGrades® developed this award to give patients more information about choosing a hospital.

The 2009 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence study found that patients treated at top-performing hospitals were 43 percent less likely to experience a medical error as compared to the poorest-performing hospitals. Between 2005 and 2007, 913,215 total patient safety events were recorded among Medicare beneficiaries, representing 2.3 percent of the nearly 38 million Medicare hospitalizations. This equates to one reported patient safety event every 1.7 minutes.

"Medical errors are unfortunately all too common in hospitals today. We challenge every hospital in the country to bring their A-Game when it comes to patient safety," said Rick May, MD, senior physician consultant at HealthGrades and co-author of the study. "Houston Medical Center has gone the extra mile to create a culture that has led to the reduction of patient safety events. The staff and physicians of Houston Medical Center should be proud of their accomplishment."

The following are the patient safety indicators studied:

  • Complications of anesthesia
  • Death in low mortality Diagnostic Related Groupings (DRGs)
  • Decubitus ulcer (bed sores)
  • Death among surgical inpatients with serious treatable complications
  • Iatrogenic pneumothorax
  • Selected infections due to medical care
  • Post-operative hip fracture
  • Post-operative hemorrhage or hematoma
  • Post-operative physiologic and metabolic derangements
  • Post-operative respiratory failure
  • Post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis
  • Post-operative sepsis
  • Post-operative abdominal wound dehiscence
  • Accidental puncture or laceration
  • Transfusion reaction

 

HealthGrades' individual hospital ratings can be viewed for free at HealthGrades.com.