The Leapfrog Group Releases 2008 Hospital Survey Offering Consumers Greater Assurance...( First Ever Tool Helps Hospitals A...),Health

First Ever Tool Helps Hospitals Assure That Their Computerized Prescribing Systems Are Effective

First Use of Efficiency Measures in a National Hospital Quality Survey

WASHINGTON, April 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With the recently released 2008 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, The Leapfrog Group becomes the first health care quality organization to add a way for hospitals to be certain that their computerized medication prescribing systems are actually catching common, serious errors.

Each year more than one million serious medication errors occur in US hospitals; many are life threatening. Leapfrog tracks which hospitals employ computerized physician order entry systems (CPOE) to try to catch potential mistakes before they happen, and their effectiveness.

"The Survey's new test of hospital prescribing systems is one of the Survey's most important patient safety innovations," said Leah Binder, chief executive officer of The Leapfrog Group. "When we tested this simulation tool with several hospitals, they were amazed to discover that it revealed major gaps in their systems. Using the evaluation tool in the Survey process will save lives."

The Leapfrog Hospital Survey has been gauging the quality of US hospitals since 2001. Each year, over 1,300 hospitals participate. Results are used by regional business coalitions in 37 major US markets to make purchasing decisions. They are also freely available to the public at http://www.leapfroggroup.org/.

"The Leapfrog Hospital Survey reflects what is most important to the largest purchasers of health care in the US -- that our enrollees and their dependents receive high-quality health care and that quality information is transparent," said Shelly Hoffmann, Director of Health Care Plans, General Motors (a Leapfrog member). "The Survey continues to raise the bar on quality for hospitals and pushes the envelope on va
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