Sacramento, CA – California Health & Human Services Agency (CalHHS) Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly, along with Cal Hospital Compare, recognized hospitals across California today for their high performance in maternity care, opioid stewardship, and patient safety.
- 107 hospitals met performance standards in maternity care.
- 85 hospitals met performance standards in opioid stewardship.
- 82 hospitals met performance standards in patient safety.
- 9 hospital met performance standards for maternity care, opioid stewardship, and patient safety.
“Improving the quality of patient care in hospitals is an ongoing process,” said CalHHS Secretary Dr. Ghaly. “These annual measurements through Cal Hospital Compare help us to applaud those hospitals doing excellent work and show where improvement is needed. The last 12 months represent a period of recovery and growth for many of our hospitals, so it’s a privilege to celebrate their exemplary performance, especially the nine hospitals that achieved recognition on the Maternity Care, Opioid Care, and Patient Safety Honor Rolls.”
Hospitals achieving all three Cal Hospital Compare Honor Rolls
| Hospital name | City |
| Barton Memorial Hospital | South Lake Tahoe |
| Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula | Monterey |
| Dignity Health Mercy San Juan Medical Center | Carmichael |
| Dignity Health St. Elizabeth Community Hospital | Red Bluff |
| Dignity Health Woodland Memorial Hospital | Woodland |
| Eisenhower Health Hospital | Rancho Mirage |
| Enloe Medical Center – Esplanade Campus | Chico |
| Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System | Salinas |
| UC Irvine Health | Irvine |
“Cal Hospital Compare is proud to contribute to the statewide effort to improve quality in the hospital setting by providing a way to evaluate performance for hospitals in the important areas of maternity, opioid stewardship, and patient safety, while offering a roadmap for change,” said Bruce Spurlock, MD, executive director of Cal Hospital Compare. “We invite all California hospitals to use these honor rolls as a tool to evaluate performance and benchmark against other hospitals.”
Maternity Care: For almost a decade, California has recognized hospitals that meet or exceed a c-section statewide target for low-risk, first births. Over 50% of the 211 California hospitals that offer maternity services made this year’s honor roll, which represents 107 hospitals. There continues to be substantial variation among individual hospital rates of low-risk, first-birth c-sections. In California, these rates range from 10% to over 40% indicating potential for further improvement. If all hospitals met the 23.6% statewide target, 2,734 C-sections would have been avoided in 2023 alone. For mothers, overuse of C-sections can result in higher rates of complications like hemorrhage, transfusions, infection, and blood clots. The surgery also brings risks for babies, including higher rates of infection, respiratory complications, neonatal intensive care unit stays, and lower breastfeeding rates. The California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative collects the data and actively works with hospitals to safely reduce low-risk C-sections.
“I congratulate these hospitals and providers for their work in reducing medically unnecessary C-sections,” said Dr. Ghaly. “Although we have more work to do, the data shows that we are heading in the right direction.”
Opioid Care: Since 2019, California has recognized hospitals for their progress and performance promoting safe and effective opioid use, providing treatment for patients with opioid use disorder, providing access to naloxone to prevent opioid overdose related deaths, and reducing barriers to care by addressing stigma. In recognition of their work in 2022, 110 hospitals, out of more than 350 hospitals, voluntarily reported their progress on addressing the opioid crisis. Of these hospitals, we congratulate 85 hospitals for making this year’s honor roll in one or more of the following performance categories: superior performance, excellent progress, sustained improvement over a two-year period, and most improved. However, participation alone is a signal to California’s healthcare community that these 110 hospitals are actively accelerating and strengthening their opioid stewardship programs. As the opioid crisis moves from a predominant prescription drug epidemic to a fentanyl epidemic, active treatment and harm prevention strategies are also evolving.
“I encourage all hospitals to participate in the Opioid Care Honor Roll program next year,” said Dr. Ghaly. “Cal Hospital Compare has numerous free resources available that will help hospitals be more effective against this epidemic. Participating in the Opioid Care Honor Roll demonstrates a hospital’s commitment to treating opioid use disorder and reducing deaths from opioid misuse.”
Patient Safety: The Patient Safety Honor Roll uses objective, publicly available patient safety measures to evaluate hospitals across a variety of domains including hospital acquired infections, adverse patient safety events, sepsis management, patient experience, and Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade. The 2023 Patient Safety Honor Roll recognizes 82 adult, acute care hospitals with high safety profiles in comparison to other hospitals. The 82 hospitals represent 24% of the 347 adult, acute care hospitals considered for the Honor Roll. This honor roll offers Californians a rigorously evaluated list of hospitals that have consistently demonstrated a strong culture of safety across multiple departments and offers hospitals yet another valuable tool to evaluate and celebrate their own performance in comparison to others. Of the hospitals making this year’s Patient Safety Honor Roll, just 35% have achieved honor roll status two years in a row. This is an indicator of the complex nature of sustaining and systematically improving multiple patient safety metrics hospital wide.
For more details on the Maternity, Opioid Care, and Patient Safety Honor Rolls, access the FAQs on the Cal Hospital Compare website.
For more than a decade, Cal Hospital Compare has been providing Californians with objective hospital performance ratings. Cal Hospital Compare is a nonprofit organization governed by a multistakeholder board that includes representatives of hospitals, purchasers, consumer groups, and health plans. It uses an open and collaborative process to aggregate public data and establish relevant measures and scoring.