Union Hospital in Dover has been ranked as one of the safest hospitals in the nation by HealthGrades. The independent healthcare ratings organization has identified UH as a recipient of its 2012 Patient Safety Excellence award. Only 263 hospitals in the country to received this designation.
Bruce James, president and CEO of Union Hospital, said keeping patients safe it a top priority for the hospital?s physicians and employees.
?The physicians and hospital staff are very focused on reducing preventable patient safety events,? James said. ?Complications following surgery, bed sores, blood clots, and post-surgical infections are a few examples of patient safety events that Union Hospital strives to reduce and eliminate. We?re pleased that our performance results in a top safety ranking from HealthGrades.?
In announcing the names of the 2012 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients, Kristin Reed, vice president of hospital quality programs at HealthGrades said, ?Patients of hospitals performing in the top 5 percent of the nation?s hospitals were almost 48 percent less likely to experience a patient safety event compared to hospitals ranked in the bottom 5 percent.?
?Just a few weeks ago we announced 2012 HealthGrades Excellence Awards for Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, and Pulmonary Medicine,? James added. ?This Patient Safety Excellence Award is a credit to the hard work and commitment to patient safety that?s been made by everybody at Union Hospital who cares for patients or supports those caregivers,? James added.
To identify the 2012 award recipients, HealthGrades analyzed approximately 40-million hospital records from 5,000 hospitals nationwide from 2008 - 2010. The analysis was conducted using a method developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to calculate event rates for 13 indicators of patient safety. Participation in the HealthGrades study is not voluntary and hospitals cannot choose to opt out of the analysis.
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