St. Francis News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
11/10/2017 12:00:00 AM CENTRAL
Updated: 11/10/2017 12:37:01 PM CENTRAL
For more information, contact Michael Morris.
St. Francis Regional Medical Center Receives "A" Grade for Safety from Leapfrog Group

St. Francis is the only hospital in Minnesota to have earned an "A" grade for five years

SHAKOPEE, Minn. (November 9, 2017) – St. Francis Regional Medical Center received an "A" rating from Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety and transparency in the U.S. health system. Leapfrog assesses and awards hospitals twice annually based on a variety of factors, including practices to prevent errors, the number of infections or surgical problems, communications between medical staff and patients and several other criteria. St. Francis is the only hospital in Minnesota to have earned straight A's from Leapfrog since the organization began awarding Hospital Safety Grades in 2012, and is one of only 59 hospitals nationwide that have achieved an "A" in every scoring update – putting it in the top 3 percent of hospitals nationwide.

"It's essential to us that our patients know they are receiving the best care possible," says Sue Miller, vice president of patient care services for St. Francis Regional Medical Center. "This award showcases our commitment to providing high quality care, and emphasizes that patient safety is our most important priority. We're hopeful that the 'A' grade we earned will support members of our community as they research and make decisions about their medical care."

For the rankings, the Leapfrog Group assigned "A" to "F" letter grades to 2,632 hospitals based on their performance on 12 process and structural measures and 15 outcome measures. The group used data from CMS, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, and secondary data sources such as the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey.

"What we've learned is that transparency has a real impact on patient safety," said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. "Errors and infections in hospitals are the third leading cause of death in America, and people deserve to know which of their hospitals are best at preventing them. We applaud all hospitals that earn an 'A' for safety, a significant achievement. St. Francis takes that achievement one step further by earning an 'A' year after year."

About Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is calculated by top patient safety experts, peer reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public. It uses 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign A, B, C, D and F grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. For more information about the Safety Grade, as well as individual hospital grades and state rankings, please visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.

About St. Francis Regional Medical Center

St. Francis Regional Medical Center is owned by Allina Health, HealthPartners Park Nicollet, and Essentia Health. This unique structure combines the caring and compassion of an award winning community hospital with the advanced medical technology, specialties, and expertise of industry-leading health systems. St. Francis provides a full range of inpatient, outpatient, and emergency care services on a collaborative medical campus with more than 30 affiliated clinics and 450 providers in the community.