Patient Safety & Outcomes

Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital performed more than 15,000 organ transplantations, a milestone reached by only a handful of healthcare centers in the nation. The hospital’s transplant program was launched in 1974 and has since grown to one of the highest-volume…

Health system leaders have built increasingly sophisticated infrastructure for tracking and improving patient safety outcomes. Yet, a visibility gap remains that data alone can’t close: the near misses, workarounds and bedside observations that never make it into the reporting pipeline…

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. detailed an action plan May 4 to curb “overprescribing” of psychiatric medications when clinically indicated, with a focus on evaluating prescription patterns, assessing benefits and harms, and increasing use of nonmedication treatments.  Six behavioral…

Safety data from hundreds of U.S. hospitals shows progress across several measures, and patient experience is improving, too, according to The Leapfrog Group.  On May 6, the patient safety organization published its biannual hospital ratings, which grade hospitals from “A”…

The rate of hospital-based shootings in the U.S. has grown steadily since 2012, with researchers warning that nearly a third of incidents could be prevented with weapons screening, according to a study published May 4 in JAMA Network Open. Researchers…

Each additional 1,000 steps per day a patient walks after surgery is linked to 18% lower odds of complications, 16% lower readmission rates and 6% shorter hospital stays, researchers found. The study, conducted by researchers at Columbus-based Ohio State University…

For the first time in its 14-year history, The Leapfrog Group’s biannual safety grades update omitted hospitals that did not participate in its surveys. The change affects more than 20% of hospitals that would otherwise be graded and comes as…

Five U.S. hospitals have received an “F” safety grade from The Leapfrog Group for spring 2026.  Leapfrog calculates hospital safety grades using up to 22 CMS patient safety measures, data from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and supplemental imputation. Read more…

For every additional patient assigned to a medical-surgical nurse in Pennsylvania, there is an associated 8% increase in fatality risk within 30 days, according to a study published April 30 in Medical Care.  The study analyzed outcomes of nearly 550,000…

HHS outlined an action plan May 4 to “curb psychiatric overprescribing” when clinically indicated, especially for children.  HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., detailed the initiative at a MAHA Institute summit, focusing on evaluating prescription patterns, assessing benefits and harms, and increasing…