El Camino Hospital Receives a 'C' Rating from Leapfrog Group

Clarification: The original headline for this article included AARP. However, the senior advocacy group recognized on their website only the 'A' rated hospitals.

A hospital is supposed to make you feel better.

An effort between AARP The Magazine and The Leapfrog Group aims to help patients find hospitals that will make you safe as well. In particular, the partnership doesn't look at whether a hospital has the latest surgical equipment or most modern operating rooms. It looks at something more basic—will the hospital itself keep you from getting sick.

The Hospital Safety Score looked at 2618 hospitals nationwide and gave them ranking of "A" through "F." Of these hospitals, 790 received an "A" and 678 received "B's." One of those "A's" went to Stanford Hospital and Clinics. 

El Camino Hospital in Mountain View was one of 1004 hospitals, or 38.4 percent, that received a "C's." The rankings considered "errors, accidents, and injuries" that El Camino publicly reported, like foreign objects retained after surgery, accidental tears and cuts from medical treatment and wounds splitting after surgery. The score is based on two years of data ranging from July 1, 2009 until June 30, 2011.

According to The Leapfrog Group, the Hospital Safety Score could help patients decide what hospital to visit and how to plan their stay, because they demonstrate the steps the hospital staff takes to ensure quality of care.

"Everybody has a role in improving this terrible problem with safety in American hospitals," says Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which administers the Hospital Safety Score. "Consumers, patients, families of patients, employers, unions, and hospitals themselves can all make a difference if we resolve here and now to make patient safety a national priority." At least 180,000 patients are killed every year from errors, accidents, injuries, and infections in American hospitals, according to The Leapfrog Group.

There is a moment when even for The Leapfrog Group, these scores should be ignored—in an emergency.

What has your experience been as a patient at El Camino Hospital? What grade would you give the medical care there? Tell us in comments!

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