Leapfrog Group 2008 Top Hospitals Announced

Today, The Leapfrog Group announced its 2008 Top Hospitals, with 26 adult and 7 children’s hospitals making the cut.  To make this list, hospitals must demonstrate high performance on a variety of quality and safety measures that are part of the Leapfrog Hospital Survey.  Meant to provide national recognition for the hospitals on the list, Leapfrog has released the list for the last several years.  The requirements for making the list have gotten more stringent each year, with this year’s criteria requiring:

• Fully meeting Leapfrog standards for computer physician order entry(CPOE) systems, as well as testing CPOE systems with Leapfrog’s CPOE evaluation tool;
• Fully meetings standards for a complex, high-risk procedure on Leapfrog’s list for evidence-based hospital referral;
• Fully meeting the standard for physician staffing in the ICU; and, 
• Fully meeting or demonstrating significant progress on 13 other patient safety practices, including hand hygiene practices.

More details on the methodology and the complete list of the 2008 Leapfrog Top Hospitals is available on The Leapfrog Group web site.