Salinas, Calif. — October 31, 2016 — Natividad Medical Center (NMC) is pleased to announce that it has received a safety grade of “A” from The Leapfrog Group, one of the country’s leading organizations in measuring and publicly reporting hospital performance, for the second time. The top grade reveals Natividad’s concentration on improving patient safety and minimizing injuries, accidents and infections.

The Hospital Safety Grade, previously known as the Hospital Safety Score, is a twice-annual assessment of more than 2,500 hospitals across the nation. The Grade includes 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data, including how often a hospital gives patients recommended treatment for a given medical condition or procedure, and what happens to a patient while receiving care. NMC is one of 844 hospitals in the U.S. and one of 81 hospitals in California to receive an “A,” which ranks it among the safest hospitals in the nation.

“We are extremely grateful to receive another top grade from The Leapfrog Group,” said NMC CEO Dr. Gary Gray. “The ranking shows our continued commitment to transparency in sharing data with our patients and the community, and to providing high quality health care and high patient satisfaction.”

NMC has received many recent recognitions for high quality health care services, including the top ranking for the Acute Rehab Center from Kindred Healthcare, the Diabetes Education Center reaccreditation by the American Association of Diabetes Educators, Top Performer by The Joint Commission, and designation as a Blue Distinction Center for Maternity Care and Bariatric Surgery excellence by Anthem Blue Cross.

About the Grade
The Hospital Safety Grade grades general acute care hospitals on how safe they are for patients. The score includes data that patient safety experts use to compare hospitals. Publicly available data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, and secondary data sources are weighted and then combined to produce a single, consumer-friendly composite score that is published as an A, B, C, D or F letter grade. The Hospital Safety Grade includes 30 publicly reported measures, all currently in use by national measurement and reporting programs. Leapfrog works under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel to select measures and develop a scoring methodology. The panel is made up of patient safety experts from across the country.

About The Leapfrog Group
Washington D.C.-based The Leapfrog Group was founded more than a decade ago by some of the nation’s leading employers and private health care experts. The Leapfrog Group strives to make major leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of health care in the U.S. by promoting transparency through their data collection and public reporting initiatives. More information is available at http://www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.

About Natividad Medical Center (NMC)
Owned and operated by Monterey County, NMC is a 172-bed, acute-care hospital providing health care services to county residents for more than 130 years. Based in Salinas, California, NMC offers inpatient, outpatient, emergency, diagnostic and specialty medical care. NMC provides more than 38,000 patient days of care each year and has more than 52,000 emergency department visits per year. NMC is a Level II Trauma Center providing the immediate availability of specialized personnel, equipment and services to treat the most severe and critical injuries. NMC’s Trauma Center is a vital community service locally that saves lives and eliminates the need to fly critically injured patients to a distant trauma center. NMC is ranked No. 1 in newborn deliveries in Monterey County and is the only teaching hospital on the Central Coast through its affiliation with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). With a medical staff of more than 300 physicians, NMC’s mission is to continually monitor and improve the health of the people, including the vulnerable, in Monterey County through coordinated, affordable high-quality health care. For more information, please call 831-755-4111 or visit www.natividad.com.