Sonoma Valley Hospital Ranked Among Safest Hospitals In The U.S. By Consumer Reports

March 28, 2014

Sonoma Valley Hospital (SVH) has been ranked among the 15 safest hospitals in the country by Consumer Reports in an article published in the May 2014 issue of the organization’s magazine.  

According to Consumer Reports, the ranking includes information from 2,591 hospitals in 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Hospitals are ranked on combined performance in five patient safety measures (mortality, readmission, scanning, infections and communication) with a score between 1 and 100. The highest ranking hospital in the report achieved a safety score of 78; SVH received a score of 73.

“We are delighted to receive this news because we value patient safety very highly,” said Kelly Mather, SVH President and CEO. “In recent years, we have worked diligently to provide our patients with the highest quality care at every level, and this has included an organization-wide commitment we have made through our Culture of Safety initiative. We work every day with the safety of our patients in mind. It’s great to see the efforts of our physicians and staff acknowledged by a national organization like Consumer Reports.”

Mather noted that this recognition comes as a result of the Hospital’s Electronic Health Record implementation in 2012, led by Fe Sendaydiego, Chief Information Officer, and Dr. Robert Cohen, Chief Medical Officer, and the Hospital’s Culture of Safety team comprising Chris Kutza, Leslie Lovejoy, Courtney McMahon, Lorna Gantenbein and Cindi Newman.

“These individuals lead the efforts to partner with all of our amazing staff  and physicians in a more focused way in order to catch medication errors and prevent hospital acquired infections before they happen,” Mather said. “We obviously succeeded and will continue to build on this success.”  

Consumer Reports noted its analysis used two measures of hospital mortality from information obtained on patients 65 and older from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which it calls the most recent, reliable, and comprehensive data publicly available. The first reports on patients admitted with medical conditions, such as heart problems; the second reports on surgery patients.

Complete hospital ratings can be found at www.ConsumerReports.org/hospitalratings