Beaumont Health Disputes Safety Grades

ROYAL OAK, MI — A recently released report on the safety of Michigan hospitals is under fire by Beaumont Health System. The Southfield-based non-profit’s metropolitan Detroit hospitals received mixed grades from The Leapfrog Group on Wednesday. It’s Troy, Royal Oak and Dearborn facilities received a grade of “C” while its Grosse Pointe and Trenton hospitals got a “B” grade and Taylor an “A.”

Beaumont officials think Leapfrog Group’s marks are not accurate, however. Leapfrog assigns a letter grade (A-F) to hospitals calculated from a group of 28 measures. The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by employers and healthcare providers, ranked 79 Michigan hospitals as part of its Spring 2017 safety grades.

“Beaumont Health has always been committed to transparency and public reporting of quality and pricing data,” said Beaumont Hospital Spokesperson Mark Geary. “But the Leapfrog Group’s safety grades methods do not provide an accurate picture of the quality efforts in many hospitals and favors hospitals that participate in the organization’s voluntary survey.”

Geary pointed to a University of Michigan study of Leapfrog’s methodology. The report said Leapfrog’s grades skews “toward positive self-report and bear little association with compulsory Medicare outcomes and penalties. With increasing compulsory reporting, Leapfrog (Safe Practices Score) seems limited for comparing hospital performance.”

Of the 79 Michigan hospitals that were graded by Leapfrog, 31.6 percent received an A while an even higher percentage received a C at 39.2 percent. None received an F but there were three that were graded a D.

To come up with the grades, Leapfrog looks at medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The goal is to determine what a patient's risk of further injury or infection is if they visit a certain hospital.

According to the organization, more than 1,000 Americans die each day from preventable hospital errors. Hospitals given a B rating by Leapfrog had a 9 percent higher risk of avoidable death than A hospitals. That number jumps to 35 percent in C hospitals and 50 percent higher in D and F hospitals.

Leapfrog President and CEO Leah Binder said the non-profit’s goal is to alert consumers to the hazards involved in a hospital stay and help them choose the safest option. “So far, we’ve been pleased with the increase in public awareness and hospitals’ commitment to solving this terrible problem,” Binder said. “But we need to accelerate the pace of change, because too many people are still getting harmed or killed.”

Formed in 2014, Beaumont Health is Michigan’s largest health care system based on inpatient admissions and net patient revenue. Beaumont operates eight hospitals, 168 health centers, nearly 5,000 physicians and 35,000 employees. Geary said his organization is all for accountability in terms of safety.

“We support the goal to provide meaningful, reliable and valid information to help consumers make important healthcare decisions,” Geary added. “But these hospital grades are more than two years old and not all measures apply to all patients. We want to ensure consumers have the most accurate and important information and will continue to work with the healthcare industries most reliable resources to do so.”

Photo courtesy of Beaumont Health System