Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Receives Highest Safety Score

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The August edition of Consumer Reports has just released their Hospital Safety Ratings and Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital tied for the 3rd highest safety score in Illinois. This safety score combines six categories of hospital safety… infections, readmissions, communication, scanning, complications and mortality…into a score between 1 and 100. Good Shepherd scored a 64. Alton Memorial Hospital in Alton, Illinois was the top scoring hospital with a score of 71, which ties them for the second highest score in the country.

"We are thrilled to receive this honor," says Karen Lambert, President, Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital. "This is a testament to the hard work and proactive approach shown by our associates who keep Good Shepherd Hospital safe every day. And, because there is always room for improvement, we will continue to develop safety initiatives that are in the best interest of our patients and their families."

Currently at Good Shepherd Hospital, safety initiatives include medication bar coding, smart IV pump technology, safer surgery checklist, and the transformation and de-centralization of cardiac telemetry monitoring.

This is the first time that Consumer Reports has rated hospitals for safety, using the most current data available from government and independent sources on the 18 percent of US hospitals that fully and consistently report patient safety data. In addition, they also conducted interviews with patients, physicians, hospital administrators and safety experts; reviewed medical literature; and looked at hospital inspections and investigations.

Their study was prompted by 2010 statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services that site infections, surgical mistakes, and other medical harm contributing to the deaths of 180,000 hospitalized Medicare patients a year. Another 1.4 million Medicare patients are seriously hurt by their hospital care. According to the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, these numbers could be even higher if public reporting was done by all hospitals around the country.

For more information and to see the full report click on http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/08/how-safe-is-your-hospital/index.htm

About Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital

Advocate Good Shepherd in Barrington, Illinois is a 169-bed acute care hospital with more than 700 physicians representing 50 medical specialties. It is part of Advocate Health Care, named one of the Top Ten hospital systems in the U.S. by Thomson-Reuters. Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital is ranked highest in Illinois for quality and patient safety according to Blue Cross Blue Shield's 2011 Blue Star Report™. Advocate is a faith-based organization that exists to serve its communities. In 2010, Advocate provided more than $474,000,000 in charity care and services to its communities. For more about Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital: www.advocatehealth.com/goodshep