Mercy Regional Medical Center was honored with an "A" grade in the Fall 2014 Hospital Safety Score, which rates how well hospitals protect patients from errors, injuries and infections. The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of experts on patient safety and is administered by The Leapfrog Group (Leapfrog), an independent industry watchdog. The hospital safety rating is peer-reviewed in the Journal of Patient Safety. The scores are free to the public and designed to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.

"The staff and providers at Mercy are focused on ensuring the safety and wellbeing of those who entrust us with their care," said Mercy CEO Tom Gessel. 

"Patient safety needs to be a 24-7 priority for hospitals, as errors and infections are all too common and often deadly," said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which administers the Hospital Safety Score. "We commend the 'A' hospitals, including Mercy Regional, for helping us to raise the standards of health care nationwide, and demonstrating that they've made the wellbeing of patients a top priority."  

Developed under the guidance of an expert panel at Leapfrog, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single "A," "B," "C," "D," or "F" score representing a hospital's overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in fall 2014, with about 31 percent receiving an "A" grade. The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, with a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades available online.

To see how Mercy's score compares locally and nationally, visit the Hospital Safety Score website at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.