Alvarado and Paradise Valley Hospitals to be Nationally Recognized for Safety

SAN DIEGO - April 14, 2016 - PRLog -- Four Hospitals were recognized nationally for their patient safety records, including Alvarado Hospital and Paradise Valley Hospital. These two hospitals received the Healthgrades 2016 Patient Safety Excellence Award™, a designation that recognizes superior performance in hospitals that have prevented the occurrence of serious, potentially avoidable complication for patients during hospital stays.

According to the Healthgrades 2016 analysis, Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient hospitals are equally or more likely than non-recipients to achieve superior outcomes in specialty areas, such as spinal surgery, orthopedics or pulmonary care.

This award places both hospitals in the top 5% in the nation for patient safety. This is the third year in a row Paradise Valley has been recognized and the second year for Alvarado. Both hospitals are part of Prime Healthcare Services, which has more 2016 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients than any other health system in the country, and all 15 of its California-based hospitals were recognized.

"The recipients of the Healthgrades 2016 Patient Safety Excellence Award have not only found ways to reduce patient safety events, but to outperform expectations in prevention of safety incidents," said Evan Marks, chief strategy officer, Healthgrades. "We applaud these hospitals for their performance and for their organizational commitment to delivering high quality care."

According to Healthgrades 2016 analysis, patient safety is strongly associated with high quality care. If all hospitals, as a group, performed similarly to Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient hospitals, on average, 270,457 patient safety events could have been avoided.

"Patient safety is maintained by monitoring closely patient outcomes and standards of practice for all clinical staff," said Neerav Jadeja, Paradise Valley Hospital administrator. "Our patients' safety is reinforced and sustained through required education and training provided to all clinical staff at least twice annually. The medical staff also is engaged in reviewing all patient safety indicators. The review process allows an opportunity to learn how to continually improve care."

"At Alvarado Hospital, we have daily multi-disciplinary team huddles which include case managers, nursing staff, speech therapists, physical therapists, dieticians, physicians and more to optimize communication among health care professionals," said Robin Gomez, Alvarado Hospital administrator. "These huddles improve patient safety, provide situational awareness of at-risk patients, and promote collaboration in real-time."

All total, Healthgrades recognized 466 hospitals nationwide.  During the study period (2012-2014), Healthgrades 2016 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient hospitals performed with excellence in providing safety for patients in the Medicare population, as measured by objective outcomes (risk-adjusted patient safety indicator rates) for 14 patient safety indicators defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

For more information about Healthgrades or to download a full copy of the report, visit: http://www.Healthgrades.com/quality.