National survey rates top local hospitals for patient safety

Fourteen Chicago and suburban hospitals earned top grades for the fourth year in a row in national ratings for patient safety.

The ratings were released this week atHospitalSafetyScore.org.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., rates hospitals on such things as medical errors, patient injuries and accidents, infection rates and other areas. It assigns letter grades, with 51 Illinois hospitals receive "A" grades and seven receiving "D" grades in the latest rating.

Among the hospitals rated A, 18 across Illinois have been at that level since the ratings began in 2012. Those in Chicago and the suburbs are:

•Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville

•Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove

•Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington

•Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago

•Advocate Lutheran General in Park Ridge

•Amita Health St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates

•Elmhurst Memorial Hospital in Elmhurst

•MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn

•Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield

•Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora

•Rush University Medical Center in Chicago

•Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago

•University of Chicago Medical Center in Chicago

•West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park

"Displaying past grades makes it clear which hospitals consistently achieve high standards of patient safety and which have demonstrated a steady path of improvement," according to Leapfrog. "Patients should always decide on where to receive care based on a hospital's current Hospital Safety Score. However, past grades can tell you a lot about that hospital's track record in keeping their patients safe from errors, injuries, accidents and infections."

The 28 safety measures include safety problems with surgery; staff following steps to ensure surgeries are safer; infections and safety problems; right staffing to prevent problems, and hospital use of safety procedures.

A hospital's overall score and scores for each of the 28 measures can be found at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org. For the first time, Leapfrog has posted past grades for each hospital on the website.