Winchester Medical Center earns 2020 Leapfrog Top Hospital award for outstanding quality and safety

Valley Health Winchester Medical Center (WMC) has been named a 2020 “Top Hospital” in the small teaching hospital category by The Leapfrog Group, a national watchdog organization for health care safety and quality. WMC has consistently earned “A” Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades, but this is the first time WMC has been designated a Leapfrog Top Hospital.

The Leapfrog Group evaluated more than 2,200 facilities nationwide, singling out only 105 to receive The Leapfrog Top Hospital award, widely acknowledged as one of the most competitive awards American hospitals can receive. Winchester Medical Center was one of only 48 named in the Top Teaching Hospital category. WMC has strong affiliate relationships with the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and Inova as a training site for medical residents in family practice, general surgery, and podiatric surgery.

“It’s especially gratifying for Valley Health’s regional referral center to be named a Top Hospital for safety and quality in 2020, a year of profound challenges for our team and hospitals worldwide confronting COVID-19,” said Mark Nantz, Valley Health System President and CEO. “Having physicians in training working beside our experienced practitioners is mutually beneficial and reinforces our commitment to high quality, safe care.”

Leapfrog announced the 2020 winners at a December virtual awards ceremony. In late January, Top Hospital trophy in hand, WMC President and Valley Health Sr. Vice President Grady W. (Skip) Philips, III, shared the honor on the monthly Zoom meeting of Valley Health Directors & Managers. After praising the relentless organization-wide dedication to High Reliability, Philips credited Valley Health Quality and Patient Safety Officer Nicolas Restrepo, MD, for leading WMC’s patient safety and quality initiatives and advancing Valley Health’s high reliability strategies to ensure that “what should happen, happens, and what should not, does not, 100% of the time.”

“The focus of our team, every day, is providing safe, high quality care for all who come to us,” said Philips. “As we create a culture of excellence throughout our organization, we are honored to be recognized by Leapfrog as one of the Top Hospitals in the nation.”

The quality of patient care across many areas of hospital performance is considered in establishing the qualifications for the award, including lower infection rates, practices for safer surgery, high quality maternity care, and the hospital’s capacity to prevent medication errors. The rigorous standards are defined in each year’s Top Hospital Methodology.

“This represents great commitment throughout our entire team for taking patient safety, quality and service to heart, whether they’re in housekeeping, food service, IT, surgical services, employee health, pharmacy, bedside nursing, sterile processing, or trauma care,” said Restrepo. “Our journey to high reliability is one that never ends. It requires a relentless focus on listening, learning, and improving with every patient encounter, and every interaction between teammates.”

“Being recognized as a Top Hospital is an extraordinary feat and we are honored to recognize Winchester Medical Center this year,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “Despite the extraordinary pressure and strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, Winchester Medical Center has demonstrated an unwavering dedication to patients and to its tri-state community. We congratulate the board, staff and clinicians whose efforts made this honor possible.”

To qualify for the Top Hospitals distinction, hospitals must rank top among peers on the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, which assesses hospital performance on the highest standards for quality and patient safety, and achieve top performance in its category. To see the full list of institutions honored as 2020 Top Hospitals, visit www.leapfroggroup.org/tophospitals.

About Winchester Medical Center

Valley Health Winchester Medical Center (WMC) is a 495-bed regional trauma and referral hospital, part of the nonprofit Valley Health System, which serves a rural region of more than 500,000 in northwest Virginia, the Eastern Panhandle and Potomac Highlands of West Virginia, and western Maryland. Winchester Medical Center has been a vital resource for area residents since 1903, offering a distinctive breadth of specialty services typically found only at urban and large academic facilities. www.valleyhealthlink.com.

About The Leapfrog Group

Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information, they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections.