ARKANSAS, USA — Mercy Health Northwest, Mercy Health Fort Smith, and Washington Regional were three out of six Arkansas hospitals that received an A in the Fall 2023 Leapfrog Group Hospital Safety Guide.
“Leapfrog is an independent watchdog group that rates hospitals based on their patient safety outcomes, and their infection rates," said Ryan Gehrig, President of Mercy Arkansas Communities. “They use 22 performance measures across all disciplines in the hospital, and make sure that we're putting patient safety and quality first and foremost.”
This is Mercy Northwest's 9th consecutive cycle of getting an A and Mercy Fort Smith's 15th.
“We have now achieved what they refer to as a straight-A hospital designation," said Gehrig. “We're achieving the highest standards around patient safety around patient safety outcomes, the lower infection rates, lower rate of injuries that can occur in a hospital."
While these grades show quality healthcare is being provided in the region, some wonder what needs to be done to sustain these grades as populations grows.
"Our healthcare systems aren't growing at the same clip as our population is," said Ryan Cork, Executive Director for Healthcare Transformation for the Northwest Arkansas Council.
Cork believes the region needs to up its recruitment efforts. This is something the council is working on as a group through residency programs and healthcare recruitment campaigns.
"We can't wait 14 years for these specialties to just develop organically, we need to go out and be actively recruiting and seeking these providers now," said Cork. "We need to grow by specialty so that we have adequate specialty care in our region."
Cork said that bringing more trained professionals to the region will make sure A ratings are maintained.
"Equitable access to specialty care so that patients don't have to leave the region, coupled with growing our healthcare workforce in Northwest Arkansas, I believe will help us maintain our A levels in leapfrog throughout the next 20 years," said Cork.
Watch 5NEWS on YouTube.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com and detail which story you're referring to.