Darla Carter

@PrimeDarla

When it comes to hospital safety, Kentucky ranks worse than most other states, and no hospital in the Louisville area earned an “A” from a nonprofit group that recently evaluated scores of health-care institutions nationwide.

Kentucky ranks 40th on The Leapfrog Group’s state-by-state list. Indiana landed at 27th.

For its Hospital Safety Scores, Leapfrog ranked states based on the percentage of “A” grade hospitals compared to the total number of hospitals that operate in the state.

Louisville area hospital grades ranged from B's for Baptist Health Louisville and Baptist Hospital Northeast in La Grange to D's for Jewish Hospital, University of Louisville Hospital and Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital. Those “D” hospitals are all owned or managed by Catholic Health Initiative’s KentuckyOne Health.

Responding to Leapfrog’s assessment, KentuckyOne Health said that it’s committed to delivering safe, high-quality care for the people of Kentucky.

“While recent Leapfrog Hospital Safety Scores at some of our facilities may not reflect the culture of safety, quality and service instilled in recent years across KentuckyOne Health, we are confident that the commitment of nurses, physicians and employees at all our facilities will guide our improvement and the delivery of quality care,” KentuckyOne Health said in a written statement.

Read more: Surgeon says budget cuts make UofL Hospital unsafe

Other local hospitals on the list included Norton Hospital downtown, Norton Audubon Hospital, Norton Women’s & Children’s Hospital and Norton Brownsboro Hospital, which all received “C” grades.

The Leapfrog Group assigned letter grades to more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals, including 52 in Kentucky, in its assessment, considering things like medical errors, accidents, injuries, infections and patient experience.

Kentucky had 21.2 percent “A” hospitals, compared to top-ranked Vermont's 83.3 percent. Indiana had 30 percent “A” hospitals. Southern Indiana hospitals Floyd Memorial and Clark Memorial both received a grade of "C."

“It is time for every hospital in America to put patient safety at the top of their priority list, because tens of thousands of lives are (at) stake,” Leah Binder, president and chief executive officer of Leapfrog, said in a news release. “The Hospital Safety Score alerts consumers to the dangers, but as this analysis shows, even ‘A’ hospitals are not perfectly safe.”

Some of the local hospitals or health systems noted that they are taking steps to improve their quality.

Connie Barker, vice president of Quality & Clinical Effectiveness at Baptist Health Louisville, said in a written statement, "We have formal processes and teams to identify and implement best clinical practices. We consistently monitor and evaluate our outcomes. We are pleased with our Leapfrog score based on our publicly reported data and continue efforts to always improve.”

Thomas Johnson, a spokesman for Norton Healthcare, issued a written statement saying in part, "The Leapfrog survey calls for voluntary participation and is not a comprehensive measure of any hospital's safety efforts. Norton Healthcare utilizes numerous national benchmarks to drive continuous improvement for our patients."

Dr. Peter Hasselbacher, an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Louisville, called The Leapfrog Group an "influential and credible organization" in an article on the blog of the Kentucky Health Policy Institute. He also expressed his concern about the state's hospital scores.

In the article, Hasselbacher laments, "once again Kentucky had fewer ‘A’-rated hospitals than the national median and more hospitals rated near the bottom with increasing numbers of D’s. More troublesome is the observation that five of the six hospitals receiving a ‘D’ are in the same hospital system. Three of these are in Louisville including two of our major teaching hospitals."

More news from the CJ

Police: Armed Jeff man was on way to L.A. event

Derek Willis arrested for alcohol intoxication

Crowd fills Big Four Bridge to honor Orlando dead

Dr. J. David Richardson, a University of Louisville surgeon and president of the American College of Surgeons, recently criticized staffing cuts by KentuckyOne Health at UofL Hospital, saying that the reductions have made the facility “unsafe” for the care of seriously ill and injured patients. Richardson made the comment in an email that also said the public hospital has “never been worse” in the 34 years he’s been involved with it, according to a story by The Courier-Journal.

In its written response to the Leapfrog scores, KentuckyOne Health noted that it has implemented “a number of programs across our system focused on improving quality and patient safety.”

Furthermore, “changes have also been made to the quality team structures, processes and leadership across the system,” the statement from KentuckyOne Health noted. “We are committed to facilitating a culture aimed at error-free performance of the highest quality. Through the use of evidence based practice, analytical and clinically relevant data, and focused multi-disciplinary improvement teams, we are confident that quality and safety across all facilities will continue to improve.”

Reporter Darla Carter can be reached at (502) 582-7068 or dcarter@courier-journal.com.

Learn more

For more information about the hospital safety scores, go to http://www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.