Leapfrog M.S. Healthcare Administration Exploration National Quality

LEAPFROG

M.S. Healthcare Administration Exploration National quality performance improvement initiatives. The organizations noted focused specific areas research; study practices information dissemination national organizations public, private governmental sectors.

Leapfrog Group

Charter

The stated aim of the Leapfrog Group is to track the "safety, quality and affordability of health care" (Mission, 2012, Leapfrog). It is designed to help consumers to make more informed healthcare decisions (Mission, 2012, Leapfrog). It 'rewards' high-performing organizations with strong ratings and, conversely, penalizes poorly-performing organizations with weak ratings -- or notes their failure to report data (Mission, 2012, Leapfrog). Participation is voluntary, but there is a strong incentive to participate in Leapfrog because of its reputation as a 'gold standard' of patient care measurements.

Past impact

Leapfrog's mission was solidified thanks to a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine which found that 98,000 Americans die every year from preventable medical errors (Mission, 2012, Leapfrog). The Leapfrog Group was founded in 2000 and today encompasses over 65 employers and agencies "that purchase care for more than 34 million people" (Jha et al. 2008). In 2009, 1206 hospitals across the country completed The Leapfrog Hospital Survey. Leapfrog makes its patient safety data publicly available, which enables all healthcare consumers to keep an eye upon safety practices at the institutions they frequent for care or at very least note if their institution refused to make data available. "Of the 1,860 hospitals targeted by Leapfrog, 790 chose not to disclose their patient safety activities, and 1,070 were willing to report their activities publicly" (Jha et al. 2008).

Leapfrog remains committed to providing information designed to reduce medical errors, and has been a strong advocate of implementing greater use of electronic record-keeping. For example, based upon 2005 figures, Leapfrog estimated that "computerized physician order entry (CPOE), ICU (intensive care unit) physician staffing (IPS), and evidence-based hospital referral (EBHR) could eliminate as many as 907,600 serious medication errors if "implemented in every non-rural hospital in the U.S. (Lwin & Shepherd 2008).

Research suggests that "hospitals that implemented patient safety practices endorsed by the Leapfrog Group reported better quality of care and lower mortality rates," including CPOE, ICU, and EBH along with "using commonly accepted treatment guidelines, measuring outcomes, and offering high-risk surgical procedures (like coronary artery bypass graft surgery) only when the hospital meets a minimum threshold for patient volume" (Jha et al. 2008). Leapfrog provides a highly data-based method of analysis of best practices that has grown increasingly popular given the cost-strapped nature of modern medicine, whereby innovations and expenditures on new methods and procedures must be financially justified.

Future