Southwestern Medical Center receives “A” hospital safety grade

Southwestern Medical Center earned an A hospital safety grade from The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit group setting standards for better patient safety and care.

SWMC was one of 13 hospitals in the state and the only one in Southwest Oklahoma to earn the ranking during Leapfrog’s Fall 2024 assessments, which were announced Friday, according to a press release.

Leapfrog assigns an A, B, C, D or F grade to hospitals across the country based on over 30 national performance measures reflecting errors, accidents, injuries and infections, the release said. They also judge the systems hospitals place to prevent harm. Only 32 percent of the approximately 3,000 hospitals reviewed nationwide receive the A grade. This is the second time SWMC has earned the grade. They earned another A grade in the Spring 2024 review.

Libby Ferguson, Chief Nursing Officer of SWMC, said they’re not surprised.

“We have a really great team here that works really hard,” Ferguson said. “It doesn’t change what we do. It’s simply an outcome. It’s a side effect of the great work that we do here.”

The idea for Leapfrog came from about 60 businesses and physicians who came together in the late 1990s and realized they’re spending billions in healthcare every year, but have no way to measure the quality impact, Ferguson said.

“What’s interesting is, that same year, a huge medical journal came out from the Institute of Medicine,” Ferguson said. “They said that year alone, 98,000 Americans died from human error in hospitals. It really was this perfect convergence of idea and oversight. The name Leapfrog came from this group of business people. They said, ‘What are the three big things in healthcare that we think are really important?’ Three big things that first year were, do you have a computerized system (to accurately track patients, their labs, etc.), are your ICUs staffed and how many high risk procedures are you performing?’”

“Great care at a hospital starts with patient safety—of doing no harm—which is not easy in a building full of sick patients,” Libby Ferguson, Chief Nursing Officer of SWMC said. “Our team works diligently to provide the best patient care, outcomes and experiences in the safest environment possible. This recognition from Leapfrog once again validates our efforts and should give our patients added confidence in the exceptional and safe care they will receive at Southwestern Medical Center.”

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade stands as the only hospital ratings program focused solely on preventable medical errors, infections and injuries killing more than 500 patients a day in the U.S., the release said. The program is peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public. Grades are updated twice annually, in the fall and spring.

“Achieving an A hospital safety grade is a significant accomplishment for Southwestern Medical Center,” Leah Binder, President and CEO of The Leapfrog Group said. “It reflects enormous dedication to your patients and their families, and your whole community should be proud. I extend my congratulations to Southwestern Medical, its leadership, clinicians, staff and volunteers for their tireless efforts to put patients first.”

The Leapfrog recognition follows several recent accolades bestowed on SWMC in the past year, the release said. In May, SWMC was included in Becker’s Hospital Review’s 2024 listing of the 100 Great Community Hospitals. In March, the hospital was recognized by Healthgrades as a recipient of its 2024 Outstanding Patient Experience Award, an honor earned by 15 percent of roughly 4,500 hospitals across the country. Last October, SWMC was included in Newsweek’s listing of “America’s Best-In-State Hospitals 2024.”

“We continue to focus on best practices, on teamwork and on creating a culture of safety,” Ferguson said. “We feel like it’s making a difference for our patients and our hospital, and it’s certainly rewarding when national advocacy groups like Leapfrog recognize us for excellence. I’d like to thank our dedicated healthcare professionals who work tirelessly to provide outstanding care every day.”

To see the safety grades of SWMC and other local hospitals, visit HospitalSafetyGrade.org and search by city/state or zip code.