ORANGE PARK – Orange Park Medical Center has been awarded an ‘A’ from The Leapfrog Group’s fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade. The Leapfrog Group assigns an A-F grading scale to hospitals across the country based on their performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patient while in their care. The designation recognizes Orange Park Medical Center’s efforts in providing safe healthcare.

The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization committed to improving the quality of care and safety for consumers. The Leapfrog Group uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 hospitals twice a year. The results are free to the public.

“Our colleagues work hard to provide the best care for our patients, and continuously put patient safety first,” said Dr. Bradley Shumaker, Orange Park Medical Center’s Chief Medical Officer. “Being recognized nationally as an ‘A’ hospital is something our whole team should take pride in.”

The Leapfrog group estimates that if the risk at all hospitals was equivalent to what it is at "A" hospitals, 50,000 lives would have been saved. Overall, researchers estimate that 160,000 lives are lost every year due to avoidable medical errors. That figure is down from 2016, when the Leapfrog Group estimated there were 205,000 avoidable deaths.

Dr. Shumaker says this high rating comes at an exciting time as the hospital continues to grow its service offerings and capacity. In June, Orange Park Medical Center broke ground on a five-story, 100,000 square foot patient bed tower that will house 48 patient beds for medical and surgical patients, bringing Orange Park Medical Center’s total number of licensed beds to 365. The patient tower is part of a $126 million expansion project and is expected to open in late 2020.

“Providing ‘A’ level care during a time of such phenomenal growth is really commendable. We will continue raising the bar for safe quality patient care as we embark on our upcoming milestones.”