By Ana Mulero, HealthcareDIVE  |  December 7, 2016

Dive Brief:

• The Leapfrog Group revealed its 2016 Top Hospital Recipients on Tuesday.
• The nonprofit hospital watchdog organization recognized nine hospitals as Top Children’s Hospitals, 56 as Top General Hospitals, 29 as Top Teaching Hospitals, and 21 as Top Rural Hospitals.
• Safety, surgical outcomes, maternity care and leadership are among the performance areas that are assessed with data gathered from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey to determine which hospitals qualify.

Dive Insight:
As physician payments are increasingly tied to the value of the services they provide, this recognition may be more valuable, especially since CMS has been increasing data transparency around hospital quality. There are states with several hospitals among those that were named. The ones with the most are California (25), New Jersey (7), Michigan (5), Texas (5), and Virginia (5). Eight states and the District of Columbia only have one hospital receiving the award.

Children’s hospitals were recently found to have higher operating margins than adult hospitals at least in part due to the demand for high-acuity services they face and their fundraising abilities. Yet only nine of these hospitals were named. To qualify for the top award, hospitals must have "better systems in place to prevent medication errors, higher quality on maternity care and high-risk procedures, and lower readmission rates," according to Leapfrog Group

Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California is one of the hospitals that was recognized at Leapfrog’s Annual Meeting and Top Hospital Awards in Washington, D.C. “With this honor, Natividad Medical Center has established its commitment to safer and higher quality care," NMC CEO Dr. Gary Gray said in a statement. "Providing this level of care to patients in Monterey County requires motivation and drive from every team member."