By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

The Leapfrog Group recently named Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster as the only hospital in the Birmingham metropolitan area to receive straight-As in its Hospital Safety Score survey.

Out of 55 Alabama hospitals participating in The Leapfrog Group survey, only 15 were given an A grade, said Shelby Baptist President and Chief Executive Officer David Wilson. Nationwide, 790 of the 2,618 participating in the program earned an A.

“It’s a moving target. We are happy, but we don’t want anyone to think that we are complacent,” Wilson said. “To get it again next year, we are going to have to be better than we are today.”

Through the safety score program, The Leapfrog Group collected data from Shelby Baptist over the past few years and compared it to data from other participating hospitals. The safety score program “grades hospitals on their overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors,” read a Leapfrog Group statement.

The program uses criteria from 26 areas before assigning hospital safety grades. Of those, 15 are based on hospital processes and procedures and 11 are based on patient outcomes, said Shelby Baptist Director of Business Development April Weaver.

“The reason we are so excited about getting this great score is that we have processes in place that we use to constantly try to improve patient safety,” Weaver said. “We think hospitals should be transparent with safety.”

Shelby Baptist Director of Quality Lori Quinn praised the hospital’s various departments for working together to earn the high grade.

“Lots of team effort has gone into this,” Quinn said.

To learn more about The Leapfrog Group’s safety score program, visit Hospitalsafetyscore.org.