Berkshire Medical Center Honored for Patient Safety

PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Medical Center again achieved high marks for patient safety from the Leapfrog Group, an independent national organization that grades hospitals on preventable medical errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. For the second time, Berkshire Medical Center has been honored with an ‘A’ Hospital Safety Score, with the latest designation coming in the Leapfrog Spring rankings for 2013.

“Achieving the high ranking that BMC has attained in patient safety is the result of intensive efforts by our clinicians and quality teams, who have developed comprehensive processes designed to ensure the safest environment for all of our patients,” said David Phelps, president and CEO of Berkshire Health Systems. “Our community can be confident that the care they receive right here at home is second to none.”

Added Diane Kelly, BMC’s chief operating officer, “BMC voluntarily participates in this rigorous analysis of our patient-safety programs, which we continually improve upon to provide our community with the best and safest care possible.” This is a testament to the dedication of our entire staff and an organization that never stops working on improvement.”

Calculated under the guidance of the Leapfrog Group’s nine-member Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 26 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries, and medical and medication errors.

The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization using the collective leverage of large purchasers of health care to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality, and affordability of healthcare for Americans. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey allows purchasers to structure their contracts and purchasing to reward the highest-performing hospitals.