Kent Hospital was identified as a recipient of the 2012 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award™, indicating that its patient safety ratings are in the top 5% of U.S. hospitals. In a new study released recently by HealthGrades, the leading provider of information to help consumers make an informed decision about a physician or hospital, Kent Hospital is one of only 263 hospitals in the country to receive this designation and the only hospital in Rhode Island.

The study finds that Medicare patients at Patient Safety Excellence Award hospitals were almost 48% less likely to experience one of 13 preventable safety events compared to hospitals in the bottom 5% in the nation. If all hospitals performed at Kent Hospital level of distinction, approximately 254,000 patient safety events and 56,367 deaths among Medicare patients could have been avoided.

To identify the 2012 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients, HealthGrades analyzed approximately 40 million hospitalization records from 5,000 hospitals nationwide that participate in the Medicare program. Participation in the HealthGrades study is not voluntary and hospitals cannot choose to opt out of the analysis.

Said Sandra L. Coletta, Kent Hospital president and CEO, "On behalf of Kent Hospital, we are honored to be recognized with this prestigious distinction. Patient safety is at the heart of all that we do everyday. Through the work of the Michael J. Woods Institute to the frontline work of the clinicians and staff, we must be continually vigilant. We are responsible for so many lives and because we are given such an important mission we must always strive to be better."

"From improving communication to implementing protocols to make surgery safer, hospitals across the country are working harder to reduce preventable patient safety events. The results of these efforts are clear among this year's HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award hospitals. Patients of hospitals performing in the top 5% of the nation's hospitals were almost 48% less likely to experience a patient safety event compared to hospitals ranked in the bottom 5%," said Kristin Reed, MPH, vice president of hospital quality programs at HealthGrades and author of the study. "Hospitals like Kent Hospital are not only setting the bar for high standards of patient safety but also serving as an example for other hospitals."

HealthGrades uses Medicare inpatient data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) database and Patient Safety Indicator software from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to calculate event rates for 13 indicators of patient safety for all of the nation's hospitals. All analysis was based on data from 2008 to 2010. These indicators identify the best-performing hospitals, which represent the top 5% of all U.S. hospitals and are this year's HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients. HealthGrades developed this award to give patients more information about choosing a hospital.

HealthGrades analyzes the following patient safety events for this study:

·Death in procedures where mortality is usually very low

·Pressure or bed sores acquired in hospital

·Death following a serious complication after surgery

·Foreign object left in body during a procedure

·Collapsed lung due to procedure or surgery in or around chest

·Catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at hospital

·Hip fracture following surgery

·Hemorrhage or hematoma resulting from procedure or surgery

·Electrolyte and fluid imbalance following surgery

·Respiratory failure following surgery

·Deep blood clots in lungs or legs following surgery

·Sepsis following surgery

·Breakdown of abdominal incision site

More information on HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award and the ratings methodology is available at HealthGrades.com