Parrish Medical Center Excels in Patient Safety - Awarded an "A" in Spring 2014 Hospital Safety Score

TITUSVILLE, Fla. — “Safety should come first for our families when we pick a hospital, because errors and infections are common and deadly,” said Leah Binder, president & CEO of The Leapfrog Group, which produces the Hospital Safety Score. “No hospital is perfect, but we congratulate the Board, clinicians, administration, and staff of Parrish Medical Center for achieving an ‘A’ and showing us that you made the well-being of your patients your top priority.”

Calculated under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm. More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in spring 2014, with about 32 percent receiving an “A” grade. The Hospital Safety Score is fully transparent, and its website offers a full analysis of the data and methodology used in determining grades.

To see how PMC's score compares locally and nationally, and to access safety tips for patients and their loved ones, visit the Hospital Safety Score website at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org. Consumers can also go to www.hospitalsafetyscore.org for a free download of the Hospital Safety Score app.

About The Leapfrog Group

The Hospital Safety Score (www.hospitalsafetyscore.org) is an initiative of The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org), a national nonprofit organization using the collective leverage of large purchasers of health care to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality and affordability of health care for Americans. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey allows purchasers to structure their contracts and purchasing to reward the highest performing hospitals. The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 with support from the Business Roundtable and national funders and is now independently operated with support from its purchaser and other members.

About Parrish Medical Center

Parrish Medical Center, located at 951 N. Washington Ave., Titusville, Florida, is a 210-bed, not-for-profit acute care public medical center serving North Brevard County for more than 50 years. The Joint Commission named PMC as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures, recognizing PMC for "exemplary performance in using evidence-based clinical processes that are shown to improve care for certain conditions." The hospital is the only Brevard County hospital to earn five consecutive "A" safety ratings from the Leapfrog Group, an independent, national not-for-profit organization founded more than a decade ago by the nation's leading employers and private healthcare experts. PMC has been ranked by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as Central Florida's No. 1 hospital, America's No. 5 independent public hospital, and in the top six percent of all U.S. hospitals (186 out of 2,985 U.S. hospitals compared). The medical center has also earned four disease-specific certification gold seals from the Joint Commission in acute coronary syndrome, breast cancer, heart failure and stroke. For more information, visit www.parrishmed.com.

WFTV