Providence Holy Cross and Providence Saint Joseph medical centers announced they have received the Healthgrades 2022 Patient Safety Excellence Award, placing them in the top 5% of acute care hospitals evaluated by Healthgrades.

Hospitals that qualify for this award have shown notable success in avoiding falls, surgical complications, bed sores and hospital-acquired infections, according to Healthgrades, a leading website that links patients to health care.

“Our patients entrust us with their care and that drives us to provide the safest possible environment,” added Bernie Klein, M.D., chief executive of Holy Cross in Mission Hills. “The No. 1 priority in our hospital is safety and each and every caregiver is responsible for identifying potential issues and reporting them.”

Leaders at the two hospitals credited the commitment across Providence to adopt a culture of “high reliability” has influenced efforts to recognize that health care workers’ greatest responsibility is the safety of its patients and one another. Clinical caregivers are required to take part in this training, which emphasizes safety and teaches techniques and behaviors that have been proven to reduce error and to improve safety in high-stress environments, including health care.

During the 2018 through 2020 study period, 170,231 potentially preventable patient safety events occurred among Medicare patients in U.S. hospitals.*

Healthgrades found that just four patient safety indicators accounted for 74% of all patient safety events: hip fracture due to an in-hospital fall, collapsed lung resulting from a procedure/surgery, pressure or bed sores acquired in-hospital and catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired in-hospital. Healthgrades also found patients treated in hospitals receiving the Healthgrades 2022 Patient Safety Excellence Award were, on average:

— 55.8% less likely to experience an in-hospital fall resulting in hip fracture, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals*

— 52.6% less likely to experience a collapsed lung resulting from a procedure or surgery in or around the chest, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals*

— 66.2% less likely to experience pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals*

— 65.8% less likely to experience catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired in the hospital, than patients treated at nonrecipient hospitals*

Healthgrades is committed to delivering the most scientifically accurate and comprehensive information about doctors and hospitals — with data insights not available anywhere else. To that end, it’s important for consumers to know that if all hospitals, as a group, performed similarly to the Healthgrades Patient Safety Award Recipients, on average, 100,189 patient safety events could have been avoided.*

“Through our 2022 Patient Safety Excellence Awards, we seek to recognize hospitals that excel in providing top-quality care for their patients while preventing serious injuries during hospital stays,” said Brad Bowman, MD, Chief Medical Officer and head of Data Science, Healthgrades. “We are proud to name Providence Holy Cross Medical Center as a 2022 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient and look forward to their continued efforts to make patient safety a priority.”

Consumers can visit Healthgrades for more information on how Healthgrades measures hospital quality and access the complete methodology here.

*Statistics are calculated from Healthgrades Patient Safety Ratings and Excellence Award methodology which is based primarily on AHRQ technical specifications (Version 2021.0.1) for MedPAR data years 2018 through 2020 and represent 3-year estimates for Medicare patients only.

Providence, Southern California is a not-for-profit Catholic health network with 10 hospitals, approximately 90 clinics, TrinityCare Hospice and its TrinityKids Care pediatric hospice, Providence High School, home health care services, eight wellness centers and numerous physician groups in its Southern California Region.