Marin General Hospital Honored as one of the Safest Hospitals in the Country
New hospital safety efforts including Operation Safety and the addition of a germ-zapping robot earns Marin General Hospital an “A” Grade for Safety from The Leapfrog Group
GREENBRAE, CA — Today, Marin General Hospital announced it was ranked as one of the safest hospitals in the United States by national non-profit hospital watchdog The Leapfrog Group. According to new Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades released Tuesday, October 31, Marin General Hospital was among only 844 hospitals out of 2600 evaluated to receive an “A” ranking for safety, which notes how well the hospital protects its patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections.
The Hospital Safety Grade is calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel and uses 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single grade representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. This score is designed to give the public information they can use to protect themselves and their families. The A grade highlights Marin General Hospital’s achievement in providing patients one of the safest medical environments.
“As the executive responsible for the overall medical quality of my facility, I find quality and safety to be indistinguishable,” said Joel Sklar, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Marin General Hospital. “We take being the gold standard of hospital safety very seriously and continually double down our efforts year after year.”
In 2014, Marin General Hospital developed a robust peer-review system, Operation Safety, which looks at the incidence of serious safety events, the root cause of why something may have gone wrong, and immediately addresses it. Since the program launched, Marin General Hospital’s rate of serious safety events has decreased by a whopping 90% and the hospital has gone more than seven months without a serious safety event.
Also of note is the hospital’s intensified effort in the fight against multi-drug resistant organisms with the acquisition of the Xenex Light Strike robot. Marin General Hospital is one of only a few hospitals in Northern California to use this new robot, affectionately named R2Clean2 by hospital staff, that disinfects surfaces and knocks out germs as strong as MRSA and Ebola using ultraviolet (UV) light hundreds of times more intense than sunlight and makes visits to Marin General Hospital even safer.
“Protecting patients from harm is the most important charge for any hospital,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “We recognize and appreciate ‘A’ hospitals’ vigilance and continued dedication to keeping their patients safe.”
