Becker's Hospital Review

42 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT Where are the 9 Leapfrog 'F' hospitals? By Mackenzie Bean T he Leapfrog Group gave nine hospitals failing grades in its fall 2019 Hospital Safety Grades re- leased Nov. 7. The organization assigns letter grades every fall and spring to more than 2,600 acute care hospitals for patient safety performance. Nine hospitals also received an "F" in Leapfrog's spring 2019 Safety Grades update, al- though none of these facilities received an "F" again in the most recent update. Here is a list of this fall's "F" hospitals broken down by state: Arkansas Jefferson Regional Medical Center (Pine Bluff) California Beverly Hospital (Montebello) San Leandro Hospital Iowa Ottumwa Regional Health Center Kentucky Jewish Hospital (Louisville) New Mexico Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services (Gallup) Texas Huntsville Memorial Hospital Matagorda Regional Medical Center (Bay City) Medical Center Hospital (Odessa) n Mold outbreak at Seattle Children's prompts new infection-reporting requirements By Gabrielle Masson H ealthcare facilities in King County, Wash., will soon be required to report hospital-associated Aspergillus infections, officials announced Nov. 22, 2019, after Seattle Children's Hospital disclosed 14 mold-related surgical site infections and six patient deaths dating back to 2001, according to KOMO News. Currently, only outbreaks of two or more mold cases in healthcare settings are required to be reported, while singular mold cases are not, Jeffery Duchin, MD, the public health officer for Seattle and King County, told KOMO News. County health officials learned of the mold-related infections in 2018, internal emails between officials and Seattle Children's revealed. Health officials did not publicly announce the mold-related infections at the time because they were "isolated cases, often separated by long periods of time ap- parently unrelated, and not known to be a part of ongoing outbreak," Dr. Duchin told KOMO News. Mold was detected in three operating rooms at Seattle Children's Nov. 10, clos- ing the hospital's operating rooms for a second time in 2019. The hospital has confirmed one surgical site infection due to the mold and is looking into other potential infections. It is now suspected that an air-handling system serving the operating rooms is to blame for some of the earlier infections, a system Dr. Duchin said public health officials should have examined earlier. Seattle Children's had no comment on the upcoming mandate, KOMO News said. n CDC: Gap between rural and urban deaths increasing in US By Gabrielle Masson T he gap between preventable deaths rates in rural and urban areas widened for many health conditions between 2010 and 2017, according to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Week- ly Report published Nov. 8. e analysis builds off a 2017 CDC report, which found a higher percentage of preventable deaths in rural areas compared to urban areas. e CDC enhanced geographic classification and reviewed 2010-17 mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System to calculate the five leading causes of preventable death among people under age 80. In both rural and urban regions, the five leading causes of death during 2010-17 were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease and stroke. Together, these deaths accounted for about 61 percent of all deaths in 2017. Rural areas had higher percentages of preventable deaths from the five leading causes than urban areas for every year between 2010 and 2017. ough preventable death rates increased in urban areas, the gap between the most rural and most urban counties for preventable deaths increased for cancer, heart disease and CLRD. e gap decreased for unintentional injury and remained stable for stroke. About 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas. e CDC recommends routine tracking of preventable deaths to help health departments and leaders monitor public health problems and focus interventions on reducing preventable deaths. n

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