These SLO County hospitals are among the safest in the nation, report says. See why
What are the safest options for health care in San Luis Obispo County?
Three local hospitals earned top marks this spring for their efforts to prevent infections, avoid surgical errors and more, according to The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization that studies patient safety and care.
Leapfrog issues Hospital Safety Grade reports twice a year for nearly 3,000 general acute-care hospitals in the United States based on rates of preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections, as well as the systems hospitals use to prevent those.
The group’s latest report, released Wednesday and searchable as an online database, grades health care facilities across the nation on a scale of A to F — with A being the highest grade and F the lowest.
Here’s how hospitals in San Luis Obispo County and northern Santa Barbara County scored.
Which SLO County hospitals are safest?
The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2024 report awarded A or B grades to all five general hospitals in or near SLO County.
Two of the three local hospitals owned by healthcare company Dignity Health earned A grades for patient safety: French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo and Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria.
Arroyo Grande Community Hospital in Arroyo Grande got a B grade. It’s also owned by Dignity Health.
Patient safety grades differed slightly for two local hospitals recently acquired by Adventist Health, a faith-based healthcare company. Both previously belonged to Tenant Health Central Coast.
Adventist Health Twin Cities in Templeton earned an A grade. It was once called Twin Cities Community Hospital.
Adventist Health Sierra Vista in San Luis Obispo got a B grade. The hospital was formerly known as Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center.
How are hospitals graded by Leapfrog Group?
The Leapfrog Group gives hospitals letter grades based on “overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.”
The group said it came up with its hospital safety grades by looking at up to 30 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and other supplemental data sources.
Leapfrog then worked under the guidance of a panel of patient safety experts to select about two dozen “evidence-based measures” — divided into five key categories — and develop a scoring methodology.
Those categories are:
Infections
Problems with surgery
Safety problems
Practices to prevent errors
Doctors, nurses and hospital staff
For more information on the Leapfrog Group’s ratings, visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.
