Proposed changes for the 2018 Leapfrog Hospital Survey are now open for public comment. The Leapfrog Group will accept comments through December 27.
Each year, Leapfrog’s team of researchers, along with Expert Panels and faculty from the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine, review the evidence included in the Survey to ensure it aligns with the latest science as well the needs of purchasers and consumers. Leapfrog then compiles a list of proposed changes and releases them to the public for comment. Following the close of this period, Leapfrog’s research team will review the comments to further refine the Survey before it is finalized. A summary of comments and responses will be posted by March of 2018.
Among the notable proposed changes to the 2018 Leapfrog Hospital Survey is Leapfrog’s updated Never Events policy, which adds requirements for hospitals to address the needs of affected caregivers and include patients and families in root cause analyses. The 2018 Survey also adds new pediatric measures, including results of a patient experience survey. The Survey sets new standards for surgical volume for eight procedures where evidence demonstrates correlation between volume and safety. The standards include minimum hospital-wide volume and minimum surgeon-specific volume contained in privileging processes. A measure endorsed by the National Quality Forum on medication reconciliation is also proposed for comment.
The full list of proposed changes can be found here. To provide public comment, please complete the public comment form here. For information on the 2018 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, visit www.leapfroggroup.org/survey.