{"id":51621,"date":"2021-12-11T14:42:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-11T19:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=51621"},"modified":"2021-12-11T14:43:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T19:43:15","slug":"safety-group-cites-lehigh-regional-medical-center-as-one-of-floridas-top-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/12\/safety-group-cites-lehigh-regional-medical-center-as-one-of-floridas-top-hospitals\/","title":{"rendered":"Safety group cites Lehigh Regional Medical Center as one of Florida’s ‘top hospitals’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 88-bed Lehigh Regional Medical Center<\/a> was the only hospital in Lee and Collier counties to make the list of “top hospitals” by a national healthcare safety group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The for-profit health center in Lehigh Acres is one of a dozen Florida hospitals to qualify for the distinction by The Leapfrog Group<\/a>. The organization also recently gave Lehigh Regional an “A” grade<\/a> for safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s quite a turnaround for the Lee County hospital, which suffered a failing grade<\/a> from the organization five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven with the continued strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lehigh Regional Medical Center has demonstrated an extraordinary dedication to excellent health care in the Lehigh community,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, in a news release announcing the award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lehigh Regional was one of 12 Florida hospitals to get awarded in the “General Hospital” category for top marks. Leapfrog graded hospitals on physician staffing levels, rates of serious medical errors, previous safety grades and other hospital safety measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We owe a lot of gratitude to our staff and our (medical) providers for making sure we provide the top level of care and safety to our patients,” said Cheryl McIntire, the hospital’s CEO and chief financial officer. “We’re a small-town hospital, and it’s great that we can provide that kind of quality of care.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organization separately reviewed rural hospitals, children’s hospitals and teaching hospitals. No other health center in Lee or Collier made any of the lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee Health, the region’s largest hospital operator, has made the list in the past, noted spokesman Jonathon Little. Lee Health-operated Gulf Coast Medical Center was on the list in 2019. Its Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida has made the list three times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee Health’s HeathPark Medical Center earned an “A” safety grade from Leapfrog this fall. So did NCH Baker Hospital and NCH North Naples Hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Leapfrog Group, founded in 2000, is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that provides letter grades to hospitals twice a year, based on safety and error statistics provided to the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another widely watched quality measure comes from the Medicare system, which has given Lehigh Regional four out of five stars<\/a> for overall quality. Though the hospital still falls short with Medicare’s “patient experience” survey, which earned the hospital one out of five stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 88-bed Lehigh Regional Medical Center was the only hospital in Lee and Collier counties to make the list of “top hospitals” by a national healthcare safety group. The for-profit health center… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":51622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51623,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51621\/revisions\/51623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}