Assessment of hospital safety in USA

“Leapfrog”, a non-profit and non-governmental organization in USA, initiated assessment and ranking of safety of patients in US hospitals. The action is motivated by humanitarian and economical reasons. The results of the hospital safety assessment in USA are published and made freely accessible. The lecture is based on the data displayed on the web-pages of Leapfrog.

The lecture is focused on the assessment methodology, based on twenty-eight parameters. The parameters are used to calculate a single final numerical estimation. This number is the criterion for unambiguous ranking of American hospitals in five quality categories. Ranking exhibits multiple aspects : expertise in medicine, management of health-care institutions and last not least application of multivariate statistics.

The topic is also actual in the light of the current debate about the shortcomings of the Slovenian health care system.