First few Article Sentences
While it's laudable for a hospital to attain an "A" rating in patient safety from the Leapfrog Group, Kaiser Permanente has garnered the highest scores for 13 of its Southern California and 18 of its Northern California hospitals. Barbara Crawford, vice president, Quality & Regulatory Services for Northern California, and Patti Harvey, sr. vice president, Quality & Risk Management, Patient Care Services, Clinical Operations for Southern California, spoke to us about how their approaches and technology helped them reach the coveted level in patient safety. Both credit an unwavering dedication of highly trained staff and physicians, Electronic Health Records (EHR) use and infection-control surveillance technology for Kaiser Permanente's success in hospital safety. However, Leapfrog, as a publicly recorded perspective on safety, is only one indicator for Kaiser Permanente, which also examines its own composites, using technology and proven methods to improve reliability and performance.