Los Alamitos Medical Center was recently honored with an “A” grade in the Fall 2014 Hospital Safety Score, which rates how well hospitals protect patients from errors, injuries and infections.
The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading experts on patient safety and is administered by The Leapfrog Group (Leapfrog), an independent industry watchdog. The first and only hospital safety rating to be peer-reviewed in the Journal of Patient Safety, the Score 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.
“Being recognized by national organizations such as Leapfrog is very meaningful,” said Kent Clayton, CEO of Los Alamitos Medical Center. “Accolades reflect not only on the hospital as a facility, but they reflect on the hard work of all of our physicians and staff. It motivates us all to continue to provide quality care to every patient.”
“Patient safety needs to be a 24-7 priority for hospitals, as errors and infections are all too common and often deadly,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which administers the Hospital Safety Score. “We commend the ‘A’ hospitals, including Los Alamitos Medical Center, for helping us to raise the standards of health care nationwide, and demonstrating that they’ve made the well-being of patients a top priority.”
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 single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm.
More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in fall 2014, with about 31 percent receiving an “A” grade. The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, with a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades available online.
Los Alamitos Medical Center also announced it has been recognized as a 2013 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of health care organizations in the United States.
Los Alamitos Medical Center was recognized as part of The Joint Commission’s 2014 annual report “America’s Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety,” for attaining and sustaining excellence in accountability measure performance for heart failure, pneumonia, heart attack, and surgical care.
Los Alamitos Medical Center is one of 1,224 hospitals in the United States to achieve the 2013 Top Performer distinction. The Top Performer program recognizes hospitals for improving performance on evidence-based interventions that increase the chances of healthy outcomes for patients with certain conditions, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, surgical care, children’s asthma, stroke, venous thromboembolism and perinatal care, as well as for inpatient psychiatric services and immunizations.
To be a 2013 Top Performer, hospitals had to meet three performance criteria based on 2013 accountability measure data, including:
Achieving cumulative performance of 95 percent or above across all reported accountability measures.
Achieving performance of 95 percent or above on each and every reported accountability measure where there were at least 30 denominator cases.
And, having at least one core measure set that had a composite rate of 95 percent or above, and (within that measure set) all applicable individual accountability measures had a performance rate of 95 percent or above.
“Delivering the right treatment in the right way at the right time is a cornerstone of high-quality health care. I commend the efforts of Los Alamitos Medical Center for their excellent performance on the use of evidence-based interventions,” said Mark R. Chassin, M.D., FACP, M.P.P., M.P.H., president and CEO, The Joint Commission.
“We understand what matters most to patients at Los Alamitos Medical Center is the quality and safety of the care they receive. That is why we have made it a top priority to improve positive patient outcomes through evidence-based care processes,” said Clayton. The hospital is proud to be named a Top Performer as it recognizes the knowledge, teamwork and dedication of our entire hospital staff.”
About Los Alamitos Medical Center
Los Alamitos Medical Center opened in 1968, is a 167-bed acute care hospital located at 3751 Katella Ave in Los Alamitos. The medical center offers a wide range of programs for families – from birthing suites to senior programs. Medical services include a 24-hour emergency department, Birthing Center, cardiology, including a cardiac catheterization/angiography suite, neurointerventional suite, comprehensive cancer services, respiratory, an on-site laboratory, MRI and open MRI, CT Scan, PET Scan, inpatient physical therapy, secured geropsychiatry unit, wound healing and hyperbarics and others, in addition to educational lectures and support groups. The hospital is part of an integrated medical campus that includes four medical office buildings and the Total Care Pavilion. The Total Care Pavilion is home to the Total Care Cancer Center, Total Care Infusion Center, and Total Care Imaging Center. A Health Care Center located within the Seal Beach Leisure World community is part of the campus too. The hospital is fully accredited by the Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency.
Wound Healing and Hyperbarics offers two hyperbaric chambers and a rotating staff of specialty physicians. They are dedicated to the comprehensive treatment of problematic wounds. Also, the hospital offers the Total Care Orthopaedic Institute where select surgery candidates can attend a six-week, pre-surgery class series to help them prepare for their procedure.
Los Alamitos Medical Center also has an online wait time clock for ER services and InQuickER service to the ER. The hospital is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to meet your health care needs.
To learn more about Los Alamitos Medical Center, visit online at www.losalamitosmedctr.com.
