Leapfrog Group: Patients report worse hospital experiences during COVID-19 pandemic, raising safety concerns

The latest batch of hospital patient safety ratings from America's Leapfrog Group shows a general decline among “several” hospital safety measures concurrent with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the healthcare safety watchdog.

Released Tuesday, the scores are accompanied by a report from Leapfrog that highlights a “significant” decline in the experiences of adult inpatients at acute care hospitals during the pandemic, with many areas “already in dire need” prior to the pandemic deteriorating even further.

“The healthcare workforce has faced unprecedented levels of pressure during the pandemic, and as a result, patients' experience with their care appears to have suffered,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of the Leapfrog Group, said in a statement.

Leapfrog’s twice-annual reports assess more than 30 patient safety measures and component measures compiled from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Leapfrog’s hospital surveys between July 2018 and March 2021. The most recent release assigns letter grades to nearly 3,000 US general hospitals and is the second collection of scores to incorporate safety and experience data from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Source: Fierce Healthcare, 10 May 2022