2 Ohio hospitals make Leapfrog’s top quality, patient safety list

Two Ohio hospitals were among 65 named to a coalition of healthcare buyers’ list of the top U.S. hospitals, in terms of quality and safety.

The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati and the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus took the honors from Leapfrog Group, which advocates for employers that purchase healthcare and includes members such as IBM, General Motors Corp. and Boeing.

It’s debatable how exclusive a club the two Ohio hospitals are joining, however. Leapfrog bases its top hospitals list on surveys in which hospitals voluntarily report quality and patient safety data. Around 1,200 hospitals completed the survey, just 21 percent of the 5,815 registered hospitals in the United States, according to the American Hospital Association.

It’s unclear the number of Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) members that completed the Leapfrog survey, since OHA doesn’t track member participation in a vast number of hospital surveys and rankings.

“At a certain point, hospitals only have the resources to participate in so many quality surveys,” said Tiffany Himmelreich, an OHA spokeswoman.

Just one Minnesota hospital — Mayo Clinic in Rochester — made Leapfrog’s list, while none from North Carolina did.