Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill is one of 11 hospitals in the five-county region and 823 nationwide to receive an “A” grade from the Leapfrog Group for its commitment to reducing errors, infections, and accidents that can harm patients.

The Leapfrog Group is a nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety, and transparency in the U.S. healthcare system.

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades initiative is a broad-based program that focuses on complications and adverse event rates from all patient populations. It was developed under the guidance of an expert panel and uses 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign A, B, C, D, and F grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. Grades are calculated by top patient safety experts, peer-reviewed, fully transparent, and free to the public.

Eric Dobkin, chief quality officer and vice president of Quality and Patient Safety for the Crozer-Keystone Health System, said that DCMH’s achievement reflects a tremendous collaborative effort.

“This score represents not only the clinical work done by our physicians, nurses, and ancillary staff, but also the efforts of those in non-clinical roles,” Dobkin said. “It required a great deal of support from various departments, especially our quality and nursing departments.

“Our board of directors felt very strongly that patient safety should be a top priority, and leadership’s engagement and support of safety initiatives also helped us to create and maintain a culture of safety.”

Dobkin points to programs throughout the Crozer-Keystone Health System, the use of “high-reliability organization” tools and behaviors, and teamwork and communication as key components of the patient safety program.

“Hospitals that earn top marks nationally in the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade have achieved the highest safety standards in the country,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “That takes commitment from every member of the hospital staff, who all deserve thanks and congratulations when their hospitals achieve an ‘A’ Safety Grade.”