b'PATIENT EXPERIENCE:A CRITICAL INDICATOR OF SAFETY Leapfrog reports on trends in health care quality to guide policy and payment strategies. Most recently, Leapfrog analyzed trends in patient experience surveys that are conducted systematically by hospitals and ASCs.Our three-part series, Patient Experience During the Pandemic, examined patient experience pre-pandemic and mid-pandemic in three different patient populations: adult patients who had same-day surgery in a hospital or ASC, adult patients who had a hospital stay, and pediatric patients who had a hospital stay. Leapfrog found deterioration over the course of the pandemic in patients perception of virtually all aspects of their experience. Patient perception of pediatric hospitals did not deteriorate over the pandemic, but there remained a chilling, ongoing problem with parents reporting a lack of comfort speaking up when they perceive a safety problem. The analysis is among the earliest indicators of significant deterioration in patient safety during the pandemic, and the report has been widely circulated among policymakers, the business community, and media to sound the alarm and galvanize a national recommitment to safety.THE LEAPFROG GROUP4'