Saint Thomas Hospital Ranked No. 1 in Tennessee for Safety by Consumer Reports

NASHVILLE, Tenn.-July 12, 2012- Saint Thomas Hospital has been ranked No. 1 in Tennessee for safety by Consumer Reports, the world’s largest independent product-testing organization.

The safety scores combine six key measures including infections, readmissions, communication about new medications and discharge, overuse of CT scanning, complications and mortality.

“Being ranked first in the state for safety is exciting and a testament to our doctors and associates who work so hard to provide the best patient-centered care possible,” said Dawn Rudolph, president and CEO of Saint Thomas Hospital. “Our team strives to utilize best practices at all times and it’s through their dedication to excellence these type of results are achieved.”

The Consumer Reports ratings are derived from several government and independent sources, including the LeapFrog Group which recently honored Saint Thomas Hospital with an “A” rating for patient safety. The hospital was also recently named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of health care.

Consumer Reports rated 1,150 hospitals in 44 states overall, including 37 in Tennessee.

Infection ratings reflect a hospitals success in avoiding infections from central-line catheters; readmission ratings represent the chance that a patient who has had a heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia will be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of his or her initial discharge; communication ratings indicate how clearly staff explains new medications and discharge planning to patients; scanning ratings reflect the percentage of chest and/or abdominal CT scans that are ordered twice for the same patient; complication ratings looks at a set of eight adverse events including bed sores, bloods clots, etc.; mortality ratings assess a set of six causes of death in a hospital including: heart attack, heart failure, stroke, stomach bleeding, hip fracture and pneumonia.