Salinas Valley Health Receives "A" Rating for Patient Safety

Media Contact: Karina Rusk
831-759-1843

Salinas Valley Health (Salinas Valley Health) is once again receiving national recognition for its commitment to patient safety. The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit organization awarded Salinas Valley Health an “A” grade in the Fall 2016 Hospital Safety Score, which rates how well hospitals protect patients from errors, injuries and infections. This is the fourth consecutive “A” grade Salinas Valley Health has earned from The Leapfrog Group.

“Salinas Valley Memorial is dedicated to offering the highest level of excellence to our patients and that effort takes place on a daily basis,” says Pete Delgado, President/CEO of Salinas Valley Health. “We continue to receive the highest grade possible because of the diligent and compassionate care provided 24 hours a day by our physicians, nurses, and entire staff.”

The Hospital Safety Score uses 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single letter grade ranging from “F” being the worst and “A” being the best. 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 to represent a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. Each measure analyzed falls into one of two categories – a process/structural measurement or an outcome measurement, each accounting for 50 percent of the overall score.

“In the fast-changing health care landscape, patients should be aware that hospitals are not all equally competent at protecting them from injuries and infections,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “We believe everyone has the right to know which hospitals are the safest and encourage community members to call on their local hospitals to change, and on their elected officials to spur them to action.”

The study analyzed 2,633 general hospitals nationwide and less than one third received an “A” grade. On the A-F scale, the greatest number of hospitals received a “C” letter grade. The Hospital Safety Score is calculated under the guidance of the Leapfrog Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, with a fully transparent methodology analyzed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Patient Safety. For more information about the A score received at Salinas Valley Health or to view the list of state rankings, visit www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.