AdventHealth Ocala has been named the Safest Hospital in Marion County by The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety and transparency in the U.S. health system. Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades (formerly known as Hospital Safety Scores) are assigned to over 2,600 general acute-care hospitals across the nation twice annually. The Safety Grade is becoming the gold standard measure of patient safety.
Within two years of acquiring the Ocala campus in August 2018, the promise to “elevate healthcare for our Marion County neighbors and to become the safest choice for healthcare” has become a reality. The following strategies have been crucial to enhancing patient safety and improving AdventHealth’s Leapfrog Grade from “D” at the time of acquisition, to the present Grade “B” rating:
- Deploying hundreds of new IV pumps and dozens of “teleboxes,” which allow care teams to monitor patients and medications in real time—significantly decreasing medication errors to patients.
- Implementing electronic health records which allow physicians to place the patient medication orders directly into the computer and allow nurses to scan a patient’s medications prior to administering medications—which has also been shown to significantly decrease medication errors to patients.
- Renovating the emergency room to provide all private patient rooms to decrease infection rates and offer complete privacy during care.
- Reinstating “safety huddles” each morning to ensure all departments are informed of hospital and patient needs each day.
Training over 2,000 team members on a change in culture to enhance how team members care for patients and each other.
AdventHealth voluntarily participates in the Leapfrog assessment, providing full transparency. To learn more about Leapfrog safety grades and how to understand them, click here https://bit.ly/2zfyFFP
