About The Lee County ledger. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1978-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 2019)
Page 8A, The Lee County Ledger, Wednesday, November 13,2019 Phoebe Nationally Recognized with an the Fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Special to the Ledger Phoebe Putney Me morial Hospital is listed among the best hospitals in the country in patient safety by The Leapfrog Group. The hospital was awarded an A in the fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction recognizing Phoebe’s achievements protect ing patients from harm and providing safer healthcare. “At Phoebe, nothing is more im portant than the safety of our patients. We are proud our staffs daily commitment to patient safety and quality care has been recognized and affirmed by the indepen dent experts at Leap frog,” said Joe Austin, Phoebe Putney Me morial Hospital Chief Executive Officer. The Leapfrog Group is a national watchdog organization committed to improving healthcare quality and safety for consumers and purchas ers. The Safety Grade assigns an A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘F’ grade to all general hospitals across the country based on their performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, acci dents, infections and other harms to patients in their care. “Our goal at Phoebe is zero patient harm, and we have made tremen dous strides toward reaching that goal in re cent years,” said Steven Kitchen, MD, Phoe be Putney Memorial Hospital Chief Medical Officer. “Thanks to the diligent work of focused safety teams, we have reduced incidents of patient harm by 61% throughout our health system in three years, and we are committed to continuing that posi tive trend.” Phoebe recently up dated its quality website with safety informa tion through the first eight months of 2019. Those numbers show an overall surgical site infection rate of just .245% or less than one infection for every 400 surgeries. Patients can visit phoebequality. com to see the most up-to-date numbers on surgical site infections and other patient safety metrics such as the number of patient falls with injury, catheter-as sociated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI). The site also includes informa tion about those patient harm indicators and what Phoebe is doing to continue to lower the numbers. “Our quality website illustrates our commitment to trans parency. We want the people we serve to be able to easily see how we’re doing and to hold us accountable,” Austin said. This year, Phoebe Putney Health System also began a journey to become a High Reliabil ity Organization (HRO). “Our patients expect us to keep them safe, heal them and be nice to them. That is more than a simple saying, it is our foundational pledge to the people of southwest Georgia,” said Scott Steiner, Phoebe Putney Health System Chief Executive Officer. “As an HRO, we will be obsessed with failure and with efforts to bring zero harm to patients. This multi-year effort will include specialized training to ensure every Phoebe employee puts safety first every day,” Steiner said. The Leapfrog Hospi tal Safety Grade was developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, and it uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-re viewed and fully trans parent, and the results are free to the public. “A hospitals show us their leadership protect ing patients from pre ventable medical harm and error,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “It takes genuine commitment at every ‘A’ for Grade level - from clinicians to administrators to the board of directors - and we congratulate the teams who have worked so hard to earn this A.” Phoebe was awarded an A’ grade Thursday, when Leapfrog an nounced grades for the fall 2019 update. To see Phoebe’s full grade de tails, learn how employ ers can help, and access patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit hospitalsafetygrade.org. About The Leapfrog Group Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a na tional nonprofit organi zation driving a move ment for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Sur vey collects and trans parently reports hospital performance, empow ering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving informa tion they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safe ty Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers pro tect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections. GOODSON PECANS Est.1972 Award Winning Gourmet Flavored Pecans And All Natural Pecan Butters c^reoit c(ift ideas For Corporate r^lvlia,0! •J7. ' ' New Crop of Pecans Now a. Available • i Check Out Our new flavors and NEW gift boxes’ Stop by for a delicious sample of our pecan products! Great gift ideas! • We also carry other great Georgia Grown Products! 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