Kaiser Permanente's 2 Santa Clara County med centers named "Top Hospitals"

Honored for quality care by national rating organization

                Kaiser Permanente’s two hospitals in Santa Clara County were rated “top hospitals” by the Leapfrog Group, a coalition of the nation’s largest businesses that buy insurance for their employees.

                Named in the award list are Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center and the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center.

“This is a testament to our doctors, nurses, and staff who work every day to make our patients have the best experience in our care,” said Irene Chavez, Senior Vice President and Area Manager for Kaiser Permanente San Jose.

Her medical center, and the KP Santa Clara hospital earlier this year received Leapfrog’s top-ranking of “A” for patient safety, and a similar “top performer” ranking from the national accrediting agency called The Joint Commission.

 The Leapfrog Group “top hospital” is an honor that rewards medical centers for outstanding success in such areas as the use of electronic health records to reduce medication and other errors, performance on high-risk surgical procedures, low mortality rates and appropriate physician staffing.

“We call it ‘magic happens at the bedside,” said Chris Boyd, Senior Vice President and Area Manager for the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Hospital. “We focus on the patient and KP Santa Clara has been a leader in both patient satisfaction and many quality metrics including preventing sepsis and cDiff infections. It’s truly a team effort.”

In all, the Leapfrog Group honored 19 Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California, ten of them in Northern California. The group surveys more than 1,300 hospitals in the United States, and awards the top performer honor to only 90.

“Since 2008, Kaiser Permanente has implemented dozens of programs that have improved our clinical quality, patient safety and patient care experience — all of which have contributed to our hospitals being among the very best in the nation,” said Gregory A. Adams, president of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals/Health Plan, Inc., in Northern California. “At the same time, as part of our transformation of health care, we are also making it more convenient for our members and patients to get their care where and when they want it — in outpatient clinics, in their homes, online and over the phone.”

Kaiser Permanente’s hospitals represent more than a third of the major urban medical centers that were named “Top Hospitals” by the Leapfrog Group.

“Kaiser Permanente’s excellence in clinical care is now the standard that others around the country are striving to achieve,” said Robert Pearl, MD, executive director and CEO of The Permanente Medical Group. “Seamless, integrated, prepaid health care has a demonstrable, major advantage over antiquated, episodic, fee-for-service medicine. As a result of the excellence of our physicians, technology and structure, our members have a 30 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease, a 10 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, and a 40 percent lower chance of dying from sepsis compared to those who are not Kaiser Permanente members. These are remarkable accomplishments and consistent with the Leapfrog Top Hospital designation.”