Quality Awards and What They Mean to You

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Just as a classroom grade gives parents feedback about their child’s academic progress, hospital safety and quality scores are meant to inform you and your family about the safest place to receive medical care. At AdventHealth Hendersonville, whole person care means a commitment to delivering safe, high-quality health care to our community. We are proud to be recognized as a Leapfrog Safety Grade A hospital and to be recognized as a 5-Star Hospital by CMS Hospital Compare.

About Leapfrog Ratings

When it’s time to choose a hospital, what’s more important than safety?

Whether you need surgery, are preparing to have a baby, or just doing research in case of emergency, The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is one way to make sure you’re choosing the safest hospital.

AdventHealth Hendersonville has earned eleven consecutive “A” grades from The Leapfrog Group since Fall 2016.

Under the guidance of a national panel of experts, The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade scores hospitals on how safe they keep their patients from errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms. Twice a year, they assign an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D” or “F” grade to more than 2,600 hospitals across the country.

How are the grades assigned?

According to The Leapfrog Group, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 28 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and information from other supplemental data sources. Taken together, those performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

The Hospital Safety Grade rates hospitals on the very basics of medical care – such as hand-washing, entering prescriptions through a computer, and the availability of highly trained nurses – as well as communication with patients, tracking and reducing risks, and collaboration and leadership to prevent medical errors.

To see AdventHealth Hendersonville’s full grade details and access patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit hospitalsafetygrade.org.

About CMS Ratings

When it comes to healthcare, safety is a complicated thing to measure – but it’s also the most important thing to consider when choosing a hospital or health care provider. There are several national ratings systems that evaluate hospitals on safety, including the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings.

As of January 2021, AdventHealth Hendersonville begins its second year with five stars – the highest attainable score – from the CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings. The results of these ratings are published annually on CMS’ Hospital Compare website. The website conveniently enables a side-by-side comparison of all hospitals.

What do these ratings mean?

CMS’ Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings summarizes a variety of measures on Hospital Compare reflecting common conditions that hospitals treat, such as heart attacks or pneumonia.

Using data reported by hospitals to CMS, Hospital Compare summarizes a variety of measures across seven areas of quality into a single star rating for each hospital and provides an unbiased report on individual hospital quality. The areas of quality include Mortality, Safety of Care, Readmission, Patient Experience, Effectiveness of Care, Timeliness of Care, and Efficient Use of Medical Imaging.

What does the rating scale look like?

The Hospital Compare website rates hospital quality on a scale from one to five stars. The overall hospital rating shows how well each hospital performed, on average, compared to other hospitals in the U.S. The more stars, the better a hospital performed on the available quality measures.

How many hospitals receive ratings?

More than 4,500 hospitals across the country receive Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings, and only 9% of hospitals have received a 5 star rating - that's 407 hospitals in all of the United States.

Why should I pay attention to these ratings?

Since hospital quality metrics are closely tied to patient outcomes, you should discuss the information you find on Hospital Compare with your physician or health care provider to decide which hospital is right for you and your family.

We’re Humbled by Your Trust

Only a limited number of hospitals have earned these hard-to-achieve top ratings. At AdventHealth Hendersonville, we believe that our performance directly reflects our culture of putting patients and families first.

While we’re honored to receive this recognition, in the end, we’re not motivated by awards.

We’re humbled by the trust patients place in us when they visit. To us, effective patient safety is simple: Treat people the way we’d like to be treated. When we do that, safety comes naturally.

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