Kaiser Permanente's Oakland and Richmond Hospitals win "A" for Safety Again

Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Oakland and Richmond are among 20 KP hospitals honored by national Leapfrog Group for limiting patient injuries, reducing medical errors and preventing infections

Kaiser Permanente Oakland and Richmond hospitals  earned the top “A” ratings for the third year from the Leapfrog Group in its annual safety report, which examined and graded more than 2,500 hospitals throughout the United States.  The two medical centers are among twenty Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California that earned an “A”.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits, released its Hospital Safety Scores after examining publicly available data on patient injuries, medical and medication errors and infections at U.S.  hospitals, which were then assigned A, B, C, D, or F grades for their safety records.

”We are pleased to see that once again Kaiser Permanente is being recognized for the high-quality health care it provides in its hospitals in Oakland and Richmond ,” said  Claude Watts, Acting Senior Vice President and Area Manager, Kaiser Permanente East Bay. “These top safety scores demonstrate the hard work of our physicians, nurses and staff to ensure our patients are being cared for safely and receive world-class treatment at our facilities.”

The Leapfrog Group is a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage founded in 2000 to work for improvements in health care safety, quality and affordability.  It is an independent advocacy group working with a broad range of partners, including hospitals and insurers. Since 2006, the organization has published an annual list of Top Hospitals in the U.S. using national measures of health-care quality, safety and efficiency. This is the third year it has published the Hospital Safety Scores, which uses 26 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries, and medical and medication errors.

 “These scores once again demonstrate the superiority of Kaiser Permanente's integrated, technologically enabled approach to patient care,” said Dr. Robert Pearl, executive director and CEO of The Permanente Medical Group. “Earning these region-leading hospital scores is a tribute to the exceptional skill of our physicians and staff.”

To see all hospital scores as they compare nationally and locally, visit www.hospitalsafetyscore.org, the Hospital Safety Score website, which also provides information on how the public can protect themselves and loved ones during a hospital stay. Local hospitals’ scores are also available on the free mobile app, available at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.