MUSC University Medical Center earns an A on national report card

The Medical University of South Carolina University Medical Center is the only hospital in Charleston to earn an A in the newly-released Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades. 

Danielle Scheurer, chief quality officer of MUSC Health, said it’s the result of progress over the course of many years. “We’re very proud, cloud nine is a good description, but it was hard-earned.”

The Leapfrog Group, which puts out the safety grades, is a national nonprofit organization focusing on hospital transparency. It focuses on giving the public information about quality and safety data. About 2,000 hospitals take part in its annual survey, including MUSC Health.

The report card looks at everything from whether hospital patients have had dangerous objects such as surgical sponges left in their bodies to infections to how well health care workers do when it comes to handwashing.

In spring of 2018, MUSC earned a B. “Some things, you can always get better at,” Scheurer said. “It really was a combination of process measures and outcome measures. And there’s part of the score that evaluates you on computerized physician order entry. Part of the contribution of our lower grade in past years was how we were using our electronic order entry. We improved a lot of those processes.”

Categories in the Leapfrog grading system include:

• Infections. MUSC did better than average at preventing these.

• Surgical problems. MUSC got a perfect score of zero.

• Practices to prevent errors. MUSC tied the best score.

• Safety problems. MUSC scored slightly below the average.

• The leadership, staffing levels, expertise, communication and responsiveness of doctors, nurses and other hospital staff. MUSC tied the best score.

Scheurer said people need to keep in mind that the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades are just one way to check on hospital quality. “It is a marker of quality, along with many others. I wouldn’t put all the stock into just one ranking.”