The Leapfrog Group's Hospital Quality and Safety Survey, used to designate top hospitals, has been upgraded to include standards in areas such as transparency reporting and certain billing procedures.
Leapfrog has been surveying hospitals since 2002, but last year was the first year it ranked some with a top hospital distinction, which many hospitals use in their branding material and local media have covered fairly extensively, according to Kat Song, spokesperson for the survey. Last year 50 hospitals received the designation of Top Hospital.
This year Leapfrog is targeting 47 percent of all U.S. hospitals to participate in the survey, up from 42 percent last year and accounting for 58 percent of all hospital beds in the country, Song said. However, any hospital can participate in the survey found on Leapfrog's website.
Surveys are due by the end of May, with aggregated results to be released in June. After June, results are continually updated on a rolling basis through December, but hospitals that complete the survey after the deadline cannot be included in the Top Hospital designation, Song said.
The survey has typically asked standard questions used by other national initiatives such as the Joint Commission, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 100,000 Lives campaign, Song said. This year, however, several new questions will be asked that will have "an important impact" for consumers.
The new questions are:
• What will the hospital do following an adverse event?
• How well are conditions treated?
• How open with the public is the hospital?
According to Song, Leapfrog will ask hospitals participating in the survey if they are willing to commit to Leapfrog's new Never Events Policy, which requires hospitals to, among other things, apologize and not bill for committing a serious medical error.
The survey asks questions regarding the treatment of seven high risk procedures and high-risk births and how well low birth weight babies are treated, Song said.
"In the past, we have asked hospitals to report whether the death rates for certain procedures, (such as) coronary artery bypass graft are above or below the national average," Song said. "Now, we are also asking what percentage of a hospital's surgeons meet the expert-defined standard of volume for those procedures."
Leapfrog has designed a new "transparency indicator" to help show consumers which surveyed hospitals are doing a good job at publicly reporting their quality and safety track records, according to Song.
Rick Norling, CEO, Premier, Inc. appreciates the survey, calling it "a proven tool" for encouraging quality hospital care. "The Leapfrog Group has differentiated itself from other organizations by actually getting things done." Norling said.
Mark McClellan, former administrator of the CMS said, "The Leapfrog Hospital Quality and Safety Survey shows the benefits of better information about quality of care, and is helping Americans get better care and better value."