Silver Cross Hospital Achieves ‘Triple Crown” for Healthcare: 100 Top Hospitals® Ranking, CMS 5-Star Rating and Leapfrog A for Patient Safety

Silver Cross Hospital today achieved a first in its 125-year history: a place on the Fortune/IBM Watson Health 100 Top Hospitals® list, a 5-Star Rating by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and an A for Patient Safety by the Leapfrog Group – all at the same time.

The hospital’s “Triple Crown” for healthcare is not only a first for the 300-bed hospital in New Lenox, it’s an exclusive group overall – with fewer than a handful of hospitals across the entire U.S. achieving this level of excellence in patient safety, patient care, patient outcomes and patient experience.

Earlier this week, Fortune/IBM Watson Health announced the hospital’s ranking on their 100 Top Hospitals® list. Silver Cross was one of only 5 hospitals in Illinois named to the list.

Late yesterday, Silver Cross learned of its second CMS 5-Star Rating.

And today, the Leapfrog Group announced the hospital had earned its 13th Straight A for Patient Safety.

“What a proud and historic moment for Silver Cross Hospital,” said President/CEO Ruth Colby. “To achieve this level of distinction is truly extraordinary and a testament to the dedication of our entire Silver Cross team of employees, physicians and volunteers. Despite the challenges of the past year, they never lost sight of what really matters: delivering an unrivaled experience to every patient every time.”

“Silver Cross Hospital continues to shine bright as a community hospital, but their commitment to patient safety and patient care truly makes them one on the nation’s best, as evidenced by these three national awards for excellence,” said Illinois State Senator Michael Hastings. “We are so fortunate to have this amazing healthcare organization close to home.”

“We are so grateful and proud to have Silver Cross Hospital in Will County,” added Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant. “Their leadership and staff have been nothing short of incredible this year as they not only faced a pandemic, they became an amazing vaccine partner and continued to raise the bar on patient care. Congratulations to all!”

“It’s my pleasure to congratulate Silver Cross Hospital on these remarkable and unprecedented awards for excellence in patient safety and patient care,” said New Lenox Mayor Timothy Baldermann. “We’ve all seen over the last year just how important it is to have quality healthcare in our area and as the Mayor of this community, I couldn’t be more proud of Silver Cross. They’ve brought nationally recognized healthcare to New Lenox.”

100 Top Hospitals®

This recognition demonstrates Silver Cross Hospital’s ongoing commitment to prioritize patient-centered care. According to IBM Watson Health, as compared to similar hospitals, the hospitals included on the Fortune/IBM Watson Health 100 Top Hospitals list had better results on key clinical and operational performance indicators. These include survival rates, patient complications, healthcare associated infections, 30-day mortality and 30-day hospital-wide readmission rates, length of stay, throughput in emergency departments, inpatient expenses, profitability and ratings from patients.

New this year, the ranking introduced a measure of hospitals’ contributions to community health with a focus on equity developed by a team of experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity and the Bloomberg American Health Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For the ranking, hospitals were surveyed across three components: 1) assessing hospital contributions to community health as a provider of critical services for community health and preventive care; 2) identifying ways that hospitals contribute to community health as a community partner teaming up with local organizations to implement critical programs; and 3) focusing on ways that hospitals promote community health through their practices as anchor institutions supporting local economic and social progress. Hospitals received credit for meeting a certain number of best practice standards in each component as part of the survey scoring and the new measure led to a change in ranking for more than one-third of the 100 hospitals. 

CMS 5-Star Rating

The overall star rating for hospitals summarizes quality information on important topics, like readmissions and deaths after heart attacks or pneumonia. The overall rating, between 1 and 5 stars, summarizes a variety of measures across 7 areas of quality into a single star rating for each hospital. The 7 measure groups include:

• Mortality
• Safety of care
• Readmission
• Patient experience
• Effectiveness of care
• Timeliness of care
• Efficient use of medical imaging

The overall rating shows how well each hospital performed on an identified set of quality measures compared to other hospitals in the U.S. The more stars, the better a hospital performed on the available quality measures. Some new or small hospitals may not report data on all measures, and therefore, aren't eligible for an overall hospital rating.

Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade

Silver Cross earned its 13th straight “A” grade in the spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction recognizing the hospital’s achievements protecting patients from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. This is the 13th Straight A for Silver Cross, placing the 300-bed hospital among the very safest hospitals in the nation.

The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization committed to health care quality and safety. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade assigns an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” grade to all general hospitals across the country and is updated every six months. It is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospitals’ prevention of medical errors and other harms to patients in their care.

For more information, visit www.silvercross.org