Sonoma Valley Hospital disputes recent ‘D’ patient safety rating

CEO Kelly Mather takes issue with the recent safety rating from the nonprofit Leapfrog Group.|

Sonoma Valley Hospital officials are taking issue with a recent hospital-safety survey, which they say resulted in an inaccurate evaluation of the facility.

Hospital safety scores released last week by the nonprofit Leapfrog Group awarded Sonoma Valley Hospital a 'D' rating on a traditional letter scale of A-F.

The 'Hospital Safety Score' is derived by a series of measures gauging how well a hospital keeps its patients safe from errors, injuries, accidents and infections. Leapfrog is a nonprofit founded by employers and health-care providers that announces ratings twice a year. The Hospital Safety Score is tallied through a combination of sources, according to hospitalsafetyscore.org, including information submitted from the hospitals themselves, as well as data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the American Hospital Association Annual Survey and Health Information Technology Supplement.

In past years, SVH has received grades ranging from 'A' in 2014 to this spring's 'D,' its lowest in recent years.

Of the 2,571 hospitals studied nationwide, 798 earned an 'A,' 639 earned a 'B,' 957 earned a 'C,' 162 earned a 'D' and 15 earned an 'F.'

Kelly Mather, SVH president, told the I-T she has 'a serious problem' with the survey methodology behind these rankings both because of how they gathered the data from SVH this year and how difficult it is for small hospitals that serve older populations to be judged accurately.

Mather believes that Medicare's 'Hospital Compare' data (available at medicare.gov) is far more valid. In past years, Leapfrog used that data for SVH's score. This year Sonoma Valley Hospital provided some of the data requested via a survey which Mather believes had a negative effect on SVH's grade.

While Leapfrog spokesperson Ashley Duvall didn't speak directly to Sonoma Valley's Hospital's results, she stands by the Leapfrog data. 'Whether a hospital fills out our survey or we use Medicare data or a combination doesn't affect a hospital's safety rating.'

Mather says that Sonoma Valley Hospital has recently ranked in the top 25 percent of hospitals Medicare tracks in its 'Hospital Compare' survey and received high marks for quality of service in specific areas like heart care quality outcomes, emergency room patient satisfaction and home health services. She also said that SVH's hospital acquired-infection rate is lower than national benchmarks, and that the hospital complies with the Center for Improvement in Healthcare Quality's national standards.

Leapfrog's Hospital Safety Score includes 30 measures. Hospitals given a 'B' rating 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.

Each measure represents what happens to a patient while receiving care. For example, 'Dangerous object left in patient's body' measures how many times a patient undergoing surgery had a dangerous foreign object, like a sponge or tool, left in his or her body (a category in which SVH had zero incidents in the time period examined).

The hospital also scored highly in several other categories, including the treatment of collapsed lungs and breathing problems, patient falls and hospital/staff responsiveness.

Some of the scores that brought down Sonoma Valley Hospital's rating from its highest grade of an 'A' back in 2014 include categories like handwashing training, communication regarding patient medication and safety training.

Former nurse Jane Hirsch heads up the hospital quality committee. She said, 'I am incredibly proud of and pleased with our safety at Sonoma Valley Hospital. We go over every safety report with a fine-tooth comb. I think we do an amazing job considering the limited resources of a small hospital like ours.' She also noted that in the three years that she had headed up the committee there has not been a single hospital-acquired infection at SVH.

In Sonoma County, two hospitals – Petaluma Valley Hospital (28 beds) and Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Santa Rosa (117 beds) – received 'A' marks from the study. Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital received a 'B' ranking. Sutter Santa Rosa Regional received a 'C' grade. Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa received a 'D' rating. Hospitals with fewer than 25 beds are not included. Sonoma Valley Hospital has 75 beds and typically sees fewer than 40 patients a day.

At the state level, Vermont was at the top of Leapfrog's state safety rankings list. Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Minnesota rounded out the top five. California ranked 37. The complete results are online at hospitalsafetyscore.org.

Contact Lorna at lorna.sheridan@sonomanews.com.

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