CTMC Maintains ‘A’ grade for Patient Safety from Leapfrog Group

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS – In a national announcement made recently, Central Texas Medical Center (CTMC) in San Marcos earned another “A” grade for patient safety. With this latest recognition, CTMC is the only two-time consecutive recipient of the top grade for hospitals between San Antonio and Austin. This ranking comes from the Leapfrog Group, an independent national hospital watchdog organization.

“Ensuring our patient’s safety while they are in our care is the job of every single person that works at Central Texas Medical Center,” said Anthony Stahl, president and CEO at CTMC. “We’re gratified to be recognized once again with the highest Hospital Safety Score by the Leapfrog Group’s elite program.”

The Leapfrog Group’s annual Hospital Safety Score ranks facilities with A, B, C, D, and F grades, rating them on errors, injuries, accidents and infections. Leapfrog releases safety score updates twice a year, and CTMC also earned an A grade in October. The spring scores include new factors, including patient satisfaction outcomes like nurse communication, doctor communication about discharge and infection measures for Clostridium difficile and methicillin resistant Staphlococcus aureus.

The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Score Program is widely considered the nation’s gold standard rating system for patient safety and is compiled under the guidance of the country’s leading patient safety experts. It is the first and only hospital safety rating to be peer-reviewed in theJournal of Patient Safety and is free to the public and designed to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.

“Avoidable deaths in hospitals should be the number one concern of our health care leaders. Hospitals that earn an ‘A’ from Leapfrog are leaders in saving lives, and we commend them and urge their continued vigilance,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group.

Developed under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a letter grade representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,571 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in spring 2016, with 798 hospitals receiving an A grade. The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, offering a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades on the Hospitalsafetyscore.org website.

For more information about Central Texas Medical Center and the services it offers, visit ctmc.org.

About The Leapfrog Group

Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. Hospital Safety Score, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.

About CTMC
The 178-bed hospital, which originated in 1923 as Hays County Soldiers, Sailors and Marines Memorial Hospital, opened at its current Wonder World Drive location in 1983. The CTMC staff of more than 700 employees works with more than 220 active and consulting physicians to provide quality services to patients and their families. In 2015, the hospital was recognized by the independent Leapfrog group as the only recipient of an “A” rating for patient safety in the I-35 corridor. In addition to interventional cardiac services, CTMC is a Certified Chest Pain Center and an accredited Primary Stroke Center. CTMC leads the region in da Vinci robotic-assisted surgery and offers a variety of specialty care services including medical imaging, rehabilitation, home health care, hospice, women’s services and more. For more information, follow CTMC on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest, and visit our website at ctmc.org.

CTMC is a member of the Adventist Health System (AHS), a not-for-profit healthcare organization that emphasizes Christ at the center of care. Founded in 1973, Adventist Health System is a national leader in quality, safety and patient satisfaction. Today, Adventist Health System supports 45 campuses in 10 states and employs nearly 70,000 individuals. Adventist Health System hospitals are comprised of nearly 8,300 licensed beds, providing care for 4.5 million patients each year in inpatient, outpatient and emergency room visits.