ACMC earns fourth patient safety ‘A’ grade
Contact: John Broom
If one word could describe Ashtabula County Medical Center’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, that word would be “safety.”
ACMC President and CEO Michael Habowski said, “From the first day we began planning our response to COVID-19, our focus has been on the safety of our patients and caregivers. We took steps to ensure caregivers had the personal protective equipment they need. We also put in place protocols to keep patients safe when they came through our doors. We wanted patients to trust that we had everything to keep them safe while providing the highest level of care they needed.”
That dedication to patient safety was reflected in a fourth ’A’ safety grade given by The Leapfrog Group, a national, non-profit organization focused on quality and safety of American healthcare. The patient safety grade is based on a hospital’s performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care.
“We are extremely grateful to hospital leadership and health care workers who have remained steadfast in prioritizing patient safety as our nation battles COVID-19,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “This ‘A’ is a testament to the care and commitment of those who work for ACMC. With the current pandemic exposing existing flaws within the U.S. health care system, we appreciate you putting patient safety first. Lives depend on it.”
Developed under the guidance of a national expert panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.
ACMC is only one of seven hospitals across the Cleveland Metro area to receive an “A” grade from The Leapfrog Group.
“I am extremely proud of our caregivers for earning this ‘A’ grade for the fourth period in a row,” Habowski said. “The commitment to patient safety can be easy to vocalize but difficult to put into practice. Patients who choose ACMC can feel confident that our caregivers practice the highest standards of safety.”