Table 1 shows the Leapfrog Group's Evidence-Based Hospital Referral standard, which was based on an analysis of published research by the Institute of Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco. To maximize initial safety gains and minimize unintended negative consequences on rural health care systems, efforts to promote these three safety leaps will focus on urban areas by using Metropolitan Statistical Area boundaries. The initial selection of these three safety standards does not imply lack of support for other important methods of improving or assuring patient safety. Reasonable scientific evidence indicates that the improvement would significantly reduce avoidable danger. Implementation by the health industry is feasible in the near term.
Consumers can readily appreciate the value of such improvement.
Health plans, purchasers, and consumers can easily ascertain the presence or absence of improvement when selecting among health care providers. There are certainly simpler and less costly methods to improve patient safety than the three leaps described above. For example, rather than implement computer physician order entry, a hospital could conduct a handwriting improvement campaign with physicians so that medication orders are more legible. However, to make full use of Leapfrog's unique leverage, the group agreed to work toward what today's evidence demonstrates as gold standards for safety improvement. Computer physician order entry may require significantly more resources than a handwriting campaign, but it is likely to produce far superior outcomes.