Salem Hospital Defends Record After Release Of Safety Grades

SALEM, MA — North Shore Medical Center hasn't completed surveys from Leapfrog Group in four years, but that didn't stop the nonprofit healthcare safety watchdog from releasing a report this week that said NSMC's Salem Hospital received a safety grade of C. Laura H. Fleming, a spokesperson for NSMC, said some data used to compile its grade of Salem Hospital was more than two years old.

"NSMC Salem Hospital provides extremely safe and compassionate care to patients and families on the North Shore and just a few months ago, received the 2019 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award for providing excellence in patient safety by preventing infections, medical errors, and other preventable complications," she said.

Fleming said NSMC would be completing Leapfrog surveys going forward and expects the next report, which will be released in the spring, will more accurately reflect the hospital's safety standards.

Leapfrog released its fall reports on Thursday. The group assigns A,B,C,D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog uses performance measures from federal government data and the group’s own hospital survey to "produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors."

"For the past four years, NSMC has not participated in the Leapfrog annual survey, one of the key sources of information used to calculate the Leapfrog hospital ratings," Fleming said. "Additionally, some of the data used to calculate hospital grades are more than two years old and may not reflect more recent performance improvement efforts."

Leapfrog's Salem Hospital safety report says the hospital "declined" to provide information in several key areas, including hand washing and how it tracks risks to patients. In other areas, Leapfrog used outdated data, which dragged the hospital's score down in the safety grading.

"We will be participating in the Leapfrog survey going forward and expect to see a report next spring that more accurately reflects our exceptional commitment," Fleming said.