Metrics, Hospital Score Cards, and Value-based Care Model: The Leapfrog Group and the Hospital Safety Score

keywords:  value-based metrics, hospital score cards, hospital admin, good teamwork = increased patient safety, quality assurance measures, consumer advocacy

Background
Within the last 20 years, hospital-level metrics and safety outcomes reporting has become more standardized with the work of nonprofit consumer safety groups like the Leapfrog Group as well as the national Medicare reporting measures which have been adapting a "clinical outcomes value-based metrics" reporting system or "scorecards".

Why should you know a little about this?
It helps to understand the pressures and standards your facility is working toward when you are developing (or improving) your own clinic outcomes measures, so that you can align your metrics with your facility's larger mission and vision.

http://www.leapfroggroup.org

What is the Leapfrog Group?
The Leapfrog Group is a nonprofit consumer safety and advocacy group founded in 2000.  It was spurred into action by the 1999 Institute of Medicine's report, To Err is Human, which revealed the terrible magnitude of preventable medical errors in U.S. hospitals.  So, the Leapfrog group developed and continues to refine and produce the "Hospital Safety Score", a standardized "scorecard" metric for consumers, employers, and insurance companies to compare and contrast hospitals in their region.  Led by CEO Leah Binder, the Leapfrog group works to encourage transparency in hospital patient safety guidelines and scoring.

The Leapfrog Groups Founding Principles are:

• people should have access to information to make informed decisions about their health care
• purchasers should pay for the best outcomes at the best price
• foster a marketplace for high-value care 

The Leapfrog Group: 

"is a nonprofit watchdog organization that serves as a voice for health care purchasers, using their collective influence to foster positive change in U.S. health care.  Leapfrog is the nation's premier advocate of hospital transparency--collecting, analyzing and disseminating hospital data to inform value-based purchasing."

website:  http://www.leapfroggroup.org/about
Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/TheLeapfrogGroup
Look up your facility's Hospital Safety Grade and history at http://www.hospitalsafetygrade.org

It currently has 3 main programs:

1. The Leapfrog Hospital Survey:  an annual, voluntary survey that collects measures from about 2,000 hospitals on patient safety and quality assurance measures
2. Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade:  This initiative assigns letter grades (A, B, C, D, or F) to hospitals based on the facility's patient safety record (hospital errors, patient hospital-acquired infections, accidents, and hospital-acquired injuries). 
3. Leapfrog Value-Based Purchasing Program:  a pay-for-performance program using Leapfrog Survey data 

The Leapfrog Group now: 

"reports data on almost 2,000 hospitals, with regional partnerships in 36 states.  We kick-started a national campaign to reduce early elective deliveries, launched a pay-for-performance program, and designed the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade to empower consumers to make better choices."

Leapfrog Group's Mission:

"To trigger giant leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of U.S. health care by using transparency to support informed health care decisions and promote high-value care."  

http://www.hospitalsafetygrade.org/

Leapfrog's Consumer Communication about the Hospital Safety Grade Program:
All the short videos below have the theme of "great hospital team care communication = good patient safety"

• Your Hospital's Safety Grade (video) 
• What is Patient Safety? (video)  
• What You [Patient] Can Do to Stay Safe in the Hospital (video): 

Other Hospital-level Metrics Groups Known for their Value-based (usually patient-centered) Outcome Measures

• The Bree Collaborative, directly influences health care policy in Washington State
• Medicare (U.S. federal program) has several programs, including the Hospital Value-based Purchasing Program

If you are aware of other hospital-level metrics groups and programs, please add them with a link to their webpage in the comments section of this post and send me a message.

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http://www.thehospitalhandbook.com/support-the-project/