The nation’s hospitals continue to face pandemic-driven challenges–ranging from staffing shortages to skyrocketing supply costs–that undermine their ability to provide safe, high quality care. Meanwhile, consumer expectations are rising, with over half of U.S. patients reporting that they’re more concerned with their quality of care today than before the pandemic.
Many of these quality-conscious consumers now use third-party quality achievements to find exceptional local care. One-third of Americans rank quality awards among their top three criteria for choosing a hospital, and when choosing between two hospitals for an upcoming procedure, nearly two-thirds say they are more likely to pick a hospital with a quality award over one without.
Consumer access to objective, data-driven quality measures is critical to achieving successful clinical outcomes, especially given recent declines in patient safety. Adverse safety events rose by nearly 20% from 2021 to 2022, with most of this single-year increase occurring at the nation’s lowest performing facilities. Among the nation’s leading hospitals, patient safety events either remained steady or improved slightly, deepening the performance gap between the highest- and lowest-performing facilities.
Healthgrades’ analysis of the latest MedPAR data indicates that similar performance gaps persist between hospitals with award-winning safety cultures and those without. From 2021 to 2023, U.S. hospitals could have avoided over 100,000 safety events if they had all performed similarly to facilities that achieved a 2025 Patient Safety Excellence Award™ from Healthgrades. Patients treated at award-recipient hospitals during the same three-year period had a significantly lower risk of experiencing one of the four leading patient safety events than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals:
- In-hospital falls resulting in fracture (54% less likely)*
- Collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery in or around the chest (54.8% less likely)*
- Pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital (69.4% less likely)*
- Catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired in the hospital (72% less likely)*
As more consumers look to hospital quality awards to guide them to top-rated care, hospitals should promote their achievements to ensure healthcare shoppers know where to find the best care. License your Healthgrades achievement to promote your outstanding quality of care and drive qualified patients to your network.
*Statistics are calculated from Healthgrades Patient Safety Ratings and Excellence Award Methodology, which is based primarily on AHRQ technical specifications (Version 2024.0.1) to MedPAR data from approximately 4,500 hospitals for years 2021 through 2023 and represent three-year estimates for Medicare patients only. To be eligible for the award, hospitals must meet certain clinical quality thresholds, have zero instances in which a foreign object was left behind during a procedure, and have data on at least seven out of eight core PSIs.
