What challenges or gaps in care are you focused on?

Medical errors is the third leading cause of death in the United States. This includes accidents, injuries, and infections in hospitals, and most are preventable. That makes patient safety an urgent issue for every American. Patient safety is also the strongest and clearest embodiment of fundamental problems throughout our health care system. Improving patient safety solves for the widest range of shortfalls in our health care system, from overhauling the fee-for-service payment system, to broader transparency, to engaging the workforce, to transforming communication and hand-offs, to putting the patient first, always. 

What initiatives are you currently spearheading to improve health?

The Leapfrog Group publicly reports on hospital and ambulatory surgery center (ASC) safety and assigns letter grades to general hospitals in the U.S. based on how well they protect their patients from preventable errors. This creates a public platform for consumers and purchasers to improve decision making and design payment to incentivize excellence, and providers to set a measureable course for improvement. We set specific standards for health care excellence, not the adequate health care standard that regulators traditionally seek.

What necessary collaborations/partnerships have you established within and/or outside of your organization in developing your initiatives?

Leapfrog was founded by employers and remains committed to its core constituency of purchasers seeking leaps forward in the quality and safety of health care. We are close allies with consumer advocacy organizations and individuals to assure that we contribute first and foremost to the well-being of the patient. To preserve our independence in rating and setting standards for health care excellence, our Board and governance includes only individuals who are unaffiliated with organizations that derive substantial revenue from the health care industry.  Outside of governance infrastructure however, we rely on advice from hundreds of hospital and ASC leaders and clinicians, clinical and measurement scientists, and key business leaders in the health care industry aligned in their devotion to patient safety and quality.

What is your measurement criteria for success/or current measurable improvements have you realized from the initiative?

Today over 2,100 hospitals in the U.S. report to the annual Leapfrog Hospital Survey, representing 73% of inpatient hospital beds in the U.S.

What gives you hope for the future in health care?

In the past decade we have seen significant progress on patient safety, with reduction of certain errors by as much as 20%. This has never happened in the long and frustrating history of the patient safety movement. Sadly, safety remains the third leading cause of death and a major problem, but we finally have evidence we are doing something right. What’s different about the last decade is transparency. Only in the past decade did we have public data on each hospital’s record, provided through CMS, and used by employers through Leapfrog’s Hospital Safety Grade which launched in 2012. Employers fought for that transparency, and founded Leapfrog so they could use transparency to drive change and give their employees and the public information they need and deserve. It’s working, but we need to accelerate our efforts. For that we need employers’ persistence and leadership.