Queen’s North Hawai‘i Community Hospital receives top rural hospital award

Queen’s North Hawai‘i Community Hospital was recently named a Top Rural Hospital by The Leapfrog Group.

More than 2,000 hospitals were considered for Leapfrog’s prestigious top hospital awards and 132 were selected including 35 top general hospitals, 74 top teaching hospitals, eight top children’s hospitals and 15 to rural hospitals nationwide.

The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit watchdog group that sets standards for excellence in patient care. Queen’s North was one of only 15 top rural hospitals nationwide and the only hospital in Hawai‘i to receive a “top” award.

The quality of patient care across many areas of hospital performance is considered in establishing the qualifications for the award, including infection rates, practices for safer surgery, maternity care and the hospital’s capacity to prevent medication errors.

This recognition is in addition to the top safety grade awarded to Queen’s North last month. Queen’s North earned an “A” hospital safety grade also from The Leapfrog Group. Leapfrog assigns grades to hospitals across the country based on over 30 performance measures reflecting errors, accidents, injuries and infections, as well as the systems hospitals have in place to prevent harm. Taken together, those performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors. Queen’s North Hawai‘i Community Hospital was among 30% of the nation’s hospitals to be awarded an “A” safety grade.

Queen’s North was also recently recognized by the American Hospital Association with the 2023 American Hospital Association Rural Hospital Leadership Team Award for commitment to the community to improve heath outcomes of Native Hawaiians. Working with Native Hawaiian leaders and multiple state agencies to implement the Kahua Ola Plan 2.0 shows a meaningful commitment to the health of this vulnerable population, according to thte American Hospital Association. They continued, saying that using culturally based interventions to improve access and health outcomes and addressing social drivers of health and other inequities have advanced the trust, accessibility and wellness of the region.