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French Hospital, Cottage Hospital ranked among top 10% of nation’s hospitals for patient safety

Courtesy: French Hospital Medical Center
French Hospital is one of 53 hospitals in California to receive the award.

French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo and Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital are being recognized for having some of the best patient care in the nation.

The hospitals both received the Healthgrades 2021 Patient Safety Excellence Award. This award ranks the hospitals among the top 10 percent of all short-term acute care hospitals in the United States that report patient safety data.

The award is given based on hospitals having the lowest occurrences of 14 preventable patient safety events that occur because of a visit to the hospital.

A vast majority of patient safety events fall into four categories: collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery, a fall resulting in a hip fracture, bed sores and catheter-related bloodstream infections.

According to Healthgrades, patients of hospitals that received the Patient Safety Excellence Award are much less likely to experience one of these preventable events than patients at hospitals that did not receive the award.

Alan Iftiniuk is the President and CEO of French Hospital. He said they are proud to receive the award because the hospital is committed to exceeding the community’s care safety expectations.

“Coming into hospitals, as you can imagine, can be a very scary thing,” Iftiniuk said. “So one of the things that you absolutely want to know is that when you come into a hospital like French Hospital, your safety is paramount in our minds - and that has always been our primary goal.”

Out of nearly 4,500 hospitals nationwide that submitted patient safety data between 2017 and 2019, 453 hospitals received the award from Healthgrades.

Healthgrades is a company that connects patients to doctors and hospitals. They compare hospital performance and issue awards to help people make choices about their care.

The company estimates that nearly 54,000 patient safety events could have been avoided over the last several years if all hospitals performed similarly to Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients.

Rachel Showalter first joined KCBX as an intern from Cal Poly in 2017. During her time in college, she anchored and reported for Mustang News at Cal Poly's radio station, KCPR. After graduating, she took her first job as a Producer at KSBY-TV. She returned to the KCBX team in October 2020, reporting daily for KCBX News until she moved to the Pacific Northwest in July of 2022. Rachel spends her off-days climbing rocks, cooking artichokes and fighting crosswords with friends.
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