Joel Schofer's Career Planning Blog

★★★ FROM LTG CROSLAND ★★★ Leapfrog Safety Grades

Posted on May 9, 2024 Updated on May 2, 2024

Teammates,

Since 2018, the Defense Health Agency has participated with the Leapfrog Group – an independent, nationwide non-profit that seeks to drive improved safety and quality in U.S. health care by using transparency that shares performance of hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers throughout the country.

The DHA is the first federal health system to participate in Leapfrog Group surveys.

You can read more about Leapfrog here – and you can look at how many hospitals, DoD or civilian, are performing.

Although we have long participated in the hospital and ambulatory care surveys, this is the first year that our Hospital Safety Grades are being published. The Safety Grade is a composite score made up of 22 national performance measures of patient safety and the grade represents how well hospitals protect patients from preventable errors, injuries, and infections.

Today, Leapfrog is publishing the 2024 Safety Grades, and 21 of our MTFs in the United States are reporting their grades. You can read our DHA press release here. Although we internally track performance for the remaining 11 US MTFs, the low volumes in these facilities affect statistical significance and the Leapfrog methodology does not allow for calculating a grade. Additionally, DHA also internally tracks the performance of our 13 overseas MTFs, which are currently under consideration by the Leapfrog board for inclusion in the program.

I am proud of how our MTFs have performed – 43% of our MTFs have achieved an A grade, against a national average of 30% of participating hospitals. Similarly, 43% of MTFs achieved a B grade, against 24% in the civilian sector. 

The nine sites that will receive an “A” grade on the Leapfrog site include:

• Evans Army Community Hospital
• Wright-Patterson Medical Center
• Naval Hospital Jacksonville
• William Beaumont Army Medical Center
• Darnall Army Medical Center
• Womack Army Medical Center
• 673rd Medical Group – Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson
• 96th Medical Group, Eglin AFB
• Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

And the following additional 10 MTFs internally tracked by DHA have also scored at an “A” grade level of performance:

• West Point—Keller ACH
• Keesler AFB—81st MDG
• Ft Riley—Irwin ACH
• Ft Irwin—Weed ACH
• NH Beaufort
• NH Camp Pendleton
• Ft Stewart—Winn ACH
• Ft Leonard Wood—Wood ACH
• Ft Wainwright—Bassett ACH
• Ft Johnson—Bayne-Jones ACH

Most importantly, we have witnessed year-over-year improvement in important safety measures.  Just a few examples include:

• Bar Code Medication Administration scores improved 57% enterprise-wide;
• Staff Working Together (National Quality Forum Safe Practice #2) saw a 90% increase;
• Hand Hygiene scores saw a 58% increase enterprise-wide.

The process of collecting and reporting these measures can be time-consuming. Still, there is great value in this program. We provide the public, and our beneficiaries, with a transparent and independent assessment of the quality practices that define us as a high reliability organization.  We also provide ourselves with important measures that compare our performance against ourselves over time, and against similarly committed civilian healthcare institutions. And we use this information in the pursuit of continuous improvement.

I’m grateful for the relentless focus that all of you bring to our quality and patient safety efforts, and for continuing to set high standards and great outcomes for all our patients Anytime, Anywhere – Always. 

Telita Crosland  
LTG, US Army 
Director, Defense Health Agency