HOSPITALS

The rankings, released twice a year, are based primarily on data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and augmented by a volunteer Leapfrog survey.

Leapfrog Group CEO Leah Binder said such sudden improvements are not uncommon when hospital staffs work together to address areas where they fall short on safety.

“When hospital associations and hospital groups work together to address patient safety and to collaborate to figure out best practices for improving their own safety, we see clusters of results like this where a whole state will show improvement,” she said.

Seven Nevada hospitals received top marks, including four in Southern Nevada: Henderson Hospital, Mountainview Hospital, North Vista Hospital and St. Rose Dominican Hospital, de Lima campus. Northern Nevada Medical Center, Renown South Meadows Medical Center and

St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno also received As.

North Vista in North Las Vegas, which jumped from a C score in spring to an A in the group’s latest report, was the only Nevada hospital to improve by two letter grades.

Those improvements were largely tied to low rates of hospital infection, death from complications after surgery and relatively few instances of “never events,” Binder said, or events that shouldn’t happen, like leaving a foreign object in a patient after surgery.

The hospital, which largely serves a poor clientele, was investigated by the state in the summer over alleged abuse of mentally ill patients, but Binder said that may not have been reflected in the hospital’s ranking because there’s little data publicly available on the quality of inpatient psychiatric care at hospitals.

“This has been a major concern of ours for a long time,” Binder said. “If we had more measures on safety specifically for psychiatric care, we would use them in an instant.”

A spokeswoman for North Vista declined

to comment on the hospital’s psychiatric care, but Chase Bennion, performance improvement manager for the hospital, said it has tightened its bedside medication administration processes and worked to prevent infections, which helped boost its score.

In addition to seven A grades among Nevada’s hospitals, three hospitals scored a B, and 10 scored a C. University Medical Center, Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center and Valley Hospital Medical Center all improved from a D last spring to a C but have frequently vacillated between the two grades in previous reports.

A spokeswoman for Desert Springs and Valley hospitals, which fall under the Valley Health System umbrella, said via email that the facilities “have action plans in place that utilize real-time data for continuous quality improvement efforts. These include implementing best practices and committee recommendations, along with ongoing employee and medical staff education.”

A spokeswoman for UMC said in

an emailed statement that The Leapfrog Group “gives no consideration to these unique services and the overall acuity of UMC’S patient population,” referring to the hospital’s Level 1 trauma unit, transplant center, pediatric trauma unit and burn unit.

“By focusing heavily on outdated hospital statistics and undervaluing key elements of patient safety, the Leapfrog rating system fails to accurately reflect UMC’S current position,” the statement read.

Binder’s best advice to patients: Research hospitals in advance, and then take an advocate, like a friend or family member, to make sure clinicians are paying attention to your treatment and their hygiene.

“Be willing to ask sometimes awkward questions, like, ‘Doctor, I didn’t see you wash your hands. Can you make sure you do that?’” Binder advised. “Those are very hard things for patients to say, but it’s critically important.”

Contact Jessie Bekker at jbekker@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @jessiebekks on Twitter.