In March, Healthgrades recognized 438 hospitals in 40 states that excel in quality care while preventing serious safety events during hospital stays. These hospitals represent the top 10% in the nation for patient safety.
Becker’s reached out to some of the recognized hospitals to find what initiatives contributed to their top patient safety performance. Here are five hospitals’ answers.
Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Thomas Aloia, MD. Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at Ascension (St. Louis): One of the most impactful patient safety initiatives we have scaled at Ascension is our “Recognize and Rescue” program. This initiative utilizes real-time analytics and multidisciplinary rapid response teams to identify early signs of patient deterioration, allowing us to intervene before serious harm occurs. The program integrates predictive algorithms directly into clinical workflows so that nurses and physicians receive alerts when a patient’s condition begins to decline, enabling rapid escalation and coordinated intervention.
This approach reflects a broader shift from reactive care to a proactive, data-informed safety model. Over the past three years, the Recognize and Rescue program has helped prevent more than 4,000 deaths across Ascension hospitals. During this time, our system’s hospital mortality rate has remained approximately 12% lower than peer hospitals nationally. In parallel, we have seen a meaningful increase in “good catches,” reinforcing a culture where associates are empowered to identify and address risks before harm occurs.
This work is complemented by targeted safety interventions such as the Fall TIPS (Tailoring Interventions for Patient Safety) program, which addresses a critical gap in engaging patients and families in fall prevention. Implemented at the bedside, this program has driven measurable improvements, including an 8% reduction in falls with harm in FY25. This equates to 110 fewer patient harm events. More than 48,000 Ascension nurses have completed this training, reinforcing consistent, evidence-based practices across our system.
Ascension is working to integrate predictive analytics, real-time monitoring and clinical decision support into the care environment. These programs, combined with strong front-line engagement and high-reliability practices, have contributed to a 42.1% year-over-year reduction in serious safety events.
Hillary Cohen, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Englewood (N.J.) Health: One of our most impactful patient safety initiatives has been our comprehensive approach to workplace violence prevention, focused on early intervention and front-line readiness. While often seen as staff-focused, this work is fundamentally about protecting patients — by preserving a safe, calm and therapeutic care environment.
A key component is mandatory, scenario-based de-escalation training, particularly in high-risk areas like the emergency department and behavioral health. This equips teams to recognize early warning signs and intervene before situations escalate, reducing disruptions to care and helping maintain an environment that supports healing and dignity. This effort is truly multidisciplinary, bringing together teams across the hospital — including clinical teams such as emergency medicine, behavioral health, and nursing; operational and safety leaders in quality, patient safety, IT, and security; as well as pre-hospital care providers, social work, and other ancillary staff. Through a dedicated Security Operations Committee, these groups work collaboratively to identify risks, prepare teams in advance, and guide more proactive responses to high-risk situations.
These efforts have led to a marked reduction in workplace violence, a result that contributed to our recent Magnet redesignation. Just as importantly, providers who feel safe are more focused, present, and able to deliver better care. By supporting our teams and empowering early action, we are directly improving both the patient experience and overall safety outcomes.
Melissa Hanna, BSN, RN. Executive Director of Quality Improvement-Safety at Mercy Hospital Fort Smith (Ark.): The most impactful patient safety initiative within our organization is the deliberate embedding of a culture of safety. This culture emphasizes awareness of safety initiatives and their impact on both patients and the organization, transparency of data, robust event reporting and review processes, and shared learning across teams. Together, these elements have driven measurable improvement in multiple areas of patient safety and quality.
Over the past three years, we have implemented numerous strategies to enhance event reporting. We have seen a significant increase in reporting that reflects improved engagement and a stronger culture of safety rather than an increase in harm. High-priority events, including patient safety indicators, undergo detailed analysis to identify contributing factors and opportunities for improvement. Key initiatives supporting this work include daily safety huddles, a Great Catch program, hospitalist huddles, plan-of-care rounding and an accountable leader structure for all CMS measures. These efforts have produced improvements in many outcomes during this three-year period. Active medical staff engagement and strong executive leadership oversight remain critical to sustaining these improvements and advancing patient safety outcomes.
Abdul Khan, MD. CEO, and Jarrett Fuselier, BSN, RN, Chief Nursing Officer at Ochsner Medical Center-Kenner (La.): Patient safety is grounded in a simple but powerful principle: the safest device is the one that is never placed — or is removed as soon as it is no longer needed. One of our most impactful patient safety initiatives has been a deliberate, systemwide effort to reduce unnecessary device utilization, specifically urinary and central venous catheters. Rather than focusing solely on managing catheter-associated infections after they occur, we chose to address the root cause of risk by reducing exposure altogether. This upstream approach has fundamentally changed how teams across our organization think about device necessity, accountability, and harm prevention.
We implemented evidence-based criteria for urinary and central venous catheter placement and embedded daily necessity reviews into routine interdisciplinary rounds. Nurses, physicians and advanced practice providers were empowered to speak up and remove devices promptly when clinical indications no longer existed. Teams adopted standardized workflows, documentation prompts, and visual reminders to prevent devices from remaining in place by default. This shifted the conversation from “Why should this device be removed?” to “Why is this device still necessary today?” Leaders at every level regularly reviewed standardized utilization ratio data with front-line teams. These discussions emphasized learning, reliability, and sustained improvement — reinforcing that patient safety is not a project, but core operational work.
From 2022 through 2026 year-to-date, this focused effort produced meaningful and lasting results at Ochsner Medical Center-Kenner:
- Urinary catheter SUR reduced from 0.81 to 0.32
- Central venous catheter SUR reduced from 1.36 to 0.53
- Together, these improvements represent an overall 60% reduction in device utilization.
David Priest, MD. Senior Vice President, Chief Safety and Quality Officer at Novant Health (Winston-Salem, N.C.): One of our most impactful patient safety initiatives is the Novant Health HeRO Playbook, a systemwide framework that aligns safety, quality and patient experience under a single, high-reliability operating model. The playbook establishes clear priorities, standardized safety behaviors and practical tools that empower team members across our hospitals and ambulatory settings to identify risks early and speak up to prevent possible incidents. Led by the Novant Health Institute of Safety and Quality, this work is reinforced by a strong culture of safety that begins on day one for every team member and is embedded into daily practice across the organization.
Implementation of the HeRO Playbook has driven measurable gains across safety and quality metrics, highlighted by a 39% improvement in HAI performance, stronger performance against enterprise safety and quality goals, reduced unwarranted clinical variation, and increased reliability of safety reporting and learning supported by standardized dashboards and board‑level governance. By pairing real‑time safety data with strong leadership accountability and empowered teams, we continue to improve outcomes, strengthen trust and deliver care patients can rely on today and into the future.
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