Regional One Health earned a B grade in this year’s Leapfrog health care grades.

The strong outcome reflects the health care system’s focus on providing excellent patient care, safety, and experiences.

Leaders say every member of the Regional One Health team played a role, and they look forward to continued success and improvement in the future.

Regional One Health’s score from Leapfrog, a national hospital watchdog group, rose to a B this year, reflecting the health care system’s focus on enacting sustainable plans to enhance patient care, safety and experiences – all of which lead to better outcomes.

The grade marks steady improvement over the past several years and is a significant achievement for an essential access hospital that serves as its region’s level-one trauma center and full-service burn center. Leaders say the credit goes to every member of the Regional One Health team.

“The dramatic improvement this institution has shown is something everyone should be proud of, because everyone played a role,” said Chief Medical Officer Martin Croce, MD.

“We achieved this in a resource-limited environment, in a facility that is aging, and while taking care of patients with the most complex conditions and critical injuries. We couldn’t have done this without a lot of hard work by everyone involved.”

Regional One Health President and CEO Reginald Coopwood, MD said the grade is evidence of an organizational culture in which patients always come first. “I am extremely proud of the hard work our team has done in order to earn a B from Leapfrog,” Dr. Coopwood said. “To us, it is more than a letter grade. We want to do what’s right for our patients and that means we will continue to be deliberate in our efforts to elevate the care we provide to each and every patient.”

Vice President of Quality Jason Neel added, “It’s not just about the scores. We want to do what’s best for patients no matter what. If we’re providing good care and empowering our staff to do the right thing, at the end of the day everything else is going to follow.”

All of that is reflected in the Leapfrog score.

Leapfrog is a private organization that grades hospitals based on metrics related to patient safety and quality care. It relies on publicly reported data from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services and other organizations, as well as surveys in which health care systems self-report.

Grades are given on a curve that compares participants to one another, and there is no separation by hospital type. That makes Regional One Health’s achievement especially noteworthy.

Essential access hospitals and level-one trauma centers like Regional One Health often face challenges including a need for more funding and resources along with patient populations with complex needs. That makes the delivery of care inherently more difficult.

Dr. Croce said the fact that Regional One Health still achieved such a strong score shows how much its providers care about their patients. “We believe that patients should always get the highest quality of care regardless of challenges, and that is reflected in our score,” he said.

The success is also based on implementing new plans to enhance quality care, fall prevention, infection prevention, and other important data points.

“We asked ourselves what truly makes a difference to the care patients receive and how they feel about their stay, and we identified things we can do every day,” Neel said. “We empowered everybody to focus on those steps, and we held ourselves accountable.”

Nurses and physicians follow enhanced protocol for infection prevention activities including placement of central lines, dressing changes, bathing, nasal treatments, hand hygiene and more. Announcements are made throughout the day to turn patients to reduce pressure injuries. When nurses visit a patient who is a fall risk, they take care of every need that would require the patient to get out of bed, from using the restroom to having personal items within reach.

“It hasn’t been one or two things, it has been incremental improvement across the board, and that’s the beauty of it,” Dr. Croce said. “It shows that we’ve developed systematic improvement, and that makes it more sustainable. We’re not just studying for the test; we have procedures in place to allow everyone to do the right thing every time.”

That positions Regional One Health to continue its strong Leapfrog performance and to deliver exceptional care to its patients.

“Our goal is to achieve an A, especially as we continue on our journey in partnership with University of Tennessee Health Science Center to become an academic medical center,” Dr. Croce said. “Our mantra has always been to do what’s right for the patient. If you always put the patient first, you’ll wind up improving in all aspects. Now, we have a systematic approach that is built into what we do, so we’re able to achieve sustainable quality improvements. While we have always done our best to deliver quality care, we are now better at documenting what we do. And our improved score now shows that.”