Skip the wait and schedule your ER Reservation in under 2 mins! Text ‘ER Now’ to (251) 512-2220 to begin!

ER Wait Time: 4 minutes | If you are having a medical emergency, call 9-1-1.

user-icon

Both Prime Healthcare Hospitals are in the Top 5% of the Nation for Patient Safety.

Paradise Valley Hospital and Alvarado Hospital both announced today that they are recipients of the Healthgrades 2020 Patient Safety Excellence award. This distinction places both among the top 5% of all short-term acute care hospitals reporting patient safety data as evaluated by Healthgrades, the leading resource that connects consumers, physicians, and health systems. This is the sixth consecutive year that Alvarado has won this award (2015-2020), and the seventh consecutive year for Paradise Valley (2014-2020).

The two hospitals are members of Prime Healthcare, which operates 45 hospitals in 14 states. Prime Healthcare has more Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients for five consecutive years (2016-2020) than any other health system in the country, according to Healthgrades.

“Consumers might not know that information around patient safety is readily available and should be considered when researching healthcare options,” said Brad Bowman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Healthgrades. “We commend the recipients of the 2020 Patient Safety Excellence Award for their dedication to providing excellent care for their patients.”

“It is always humbling to receive this honor, no matter how many times we achieve this recognition,” said Robin Gomez, CEO of Alvarado Hospital. “Being recognized as a top 5% hospital in the nation for patient safety is an incredible accomplishment. And the fact that we have done this for multiple, consecutive years is amazing. For this, we are all very proud.”

Robin’s counterpart at Paradise Valley Hospital, CEO Neerav Jadeja, added, “I’m also very proud of our team. Safety is such a central focus for us, and the importance of patient—and staff—safety is heightened during this time of the pandemic.”

During the study period (2016 through 2018), Healthgrades 2020 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient hospitals demonstrated excellent performance in safeguarding patients in the Medicare population, as measured by objective outcomes—risk-adjusted patient safety indicator (PSI) rates—for 13 PSIs defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). A 14th PSI included in the evaluation is Foreign Objects Left in Body During a Surgery or Procedure, which is a “never” event and does not have an expected rate.

Healthgrades found that patients treated in hospitals receiving the Patient Safety Excellence Award were, on average*:

  • 48.3% less likely to experience a collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery in or around the chest, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals.
  • 54.4% less likely to experience a hip fracture following surgery, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals.
  • 66.8% less likely to experience pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals.
  • 63% less likely to experience catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at the hospital, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals.
  • In addition, if all hospitals in the country performed at the level of award recipients for each of the 13 patient safety indicators, 110,864 patient safety events could have been avoided.*

Paradise Valley Hospital has taken creative steps toward increasing patient safety, such as having the hospital’s engineering team fabricate “intubation boxes,” which are essentially plexiglass barriers with arm holes that are placed over the upper torso of patients to shield physicians and staff from aerosolized fluids that may occur as a patient is being intubated. Hospital engineers also developed “transport covers,” a PVC frame that is placed over a patient in a gurney that allows for the draping of disposable plastic sheeting over a patient as he or she is moved from one location in the hospital to another.

Alvarado Hospital’s surgical, nursing, performance improvement, and administrative departments worked in a closely coordinated way to develop new COVID-19 safety protocols, policies, and procedures which allowed for the prompt return of elective surgical procedures as soon as local and federal authorities deemed it safe.

View Healthgrades hospital quality methodologies.

*Statistics are calculated from Healthgrades Patient Safety Ratings and Excellence Award methodology which is based primarily on AHRQ technical specifications (Version 2019.0.1) to MedPAR data for the years 2016 through 2018 and represent three-year estimates for Medicare patients only.