What's New in 2022
Person-Centered Care: Billing Ethics
Billing quality is health care quality. Hospitals should provide patients with readily understandable and comprehensive bills and help patients avoid financial hardship that can lead to delayed care in the future. Leapfrog's new Billing Ethics standard will be publicly reported on this website beginning on July 25.
Person-Centered Care: Health Equity
All patients deserve safe, high quality care. Hospitals should identify and mitigate health care disparities due to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identify at the point of care. Leapfrog has added questions to assess what actions hospitals are taking to identify and reduce health care disparities. These questions will not be scored or publicly reported in 2022.
Informed Consent
Informed consent is an essential step in helping patients be aware of the risks associated with recommended tests, treatments, and procedures. Leapfrog has added new questions to assess a hospital's internal training and education around informed consent, the content of informed consent forms, and the process of gaining informed consent. These questions will not be scored or publicly reported in 2022.
Nurse Staffing and Skill Level
Nursing care impacts patient outcomes. Hospitals should ensure adequate nurse staffing, skill mix, and education so their patients receive the safest, highest-quality care. Leapfrog has added questions to assess nursing staff levels and the skill mix of those nurses in medical, surgical, and med-surg units, and the percentage of BSN-prepared nurses hospital-wide. These questions will not be scored or publicly reported in 2022.