HMC Earns ‘A’ Grade for Patient Safety

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Medical Center (HMC) has once again earned an ‘A’ rating from The Leapfrog Group, ranking them among the safest hospitals in the United States. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the first and only national health care rating focused on errors, accidents and infections.

The program has been assigning A, B, C, D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the U.S. since 2012. Holyoke Medical Center was one of 823 hospitals to receive an ‘A’ ranking among the safest hospitals in the United States.

“This is the third consecutive ‘A’ rating for Holyoke Medical Center. As a freestanding independent community hospital, we must rely on providing our patients with the safest, highest quality, affordable care possible, and we appreciate our staff who join us every day in being dedicated to our mission,” said Spiros Hatiras, president and CEO of Holyoke Medical Center and Valley Health Systems Inc.

“When we launched the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade in 2012, our goal was to alert consumers to the hazards involved in a hospital stay and help them choose the safest option. We also hoped to galvanize hospitals to make safety the first priority day in and day out,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog. “So far, we’ve been pleased with the increase in public awareness and hospitals’ commitment to solving this terrible problem. But we need to accelerate the pace of change, because too many people are still getting harmed or killed.”

Developed under the guidance of an Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign A, B, C, D and F grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. It is calculated by top patient safety experts, peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public.

To see Holyoke Medical Center’s full grade, and to access consumer-friendly patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.