Cleveland Clinic Florida Named to Leapfrog
Group's Class of Top Hospitals

Cleveland Clinic Florida has been named a top hospital by Leapfrog Group, a Washington DC based non-profit organization that works for improvements in health care safety, quality and affordability.

Cleveland Clinic Florida was one of 65 hospitals selected from a field of nearly 1,200 hospitals nationwide.  The selection was based on the results of the Leapfrog Group's national survey that focuses on four critical areas of patient safety: the use of computer physician order entry (CPOE) to prevent medication errors; standards for doing high-risk procedures such as heart surgery; protocols and policies to reduce medical errors and other safe practices recommended by the National Quality Forum; and adequate nurse and physician staffing.  In addition, hospitals are measured on their progress in preventing infections and other hospital-acquired conditions and adopting policies on the handling of serious medical errors.

"We are deeply honored to receive this recognition, which is a testimony to the high quality, compassionate patient care that our medical team provides," said Bernie Fernandez, MD, chief executive officer of Cleveland Clinic Florida.  "Each member of our team is committed to ensuring that our standards remain high so that each patient has a unique experience each time they come to us."

Frank Rahaghi, MD, Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic and Chairman of Quality at Cleveland Clinic Florida added, "The Leapfrog recognition can be directly attributed to the hard work and dedication of the Cleveland Clinic Florida staff and to the effectiveness of our unique model of medicine, which facilitates quality delivery of care and uniform implementation of safety measures."

In addition to being named to Leapfrog Group's class of top hospitals, Cleveland Clinic Florida was recently named one of the nations Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospitals by Thomson Reuters and ranked
#17 in Gastroenterology and #40 in Diabetes and Endocrinology in the 2010 edition of US News & World Report's Best Hospitals.  Cleveland Clinic Florida has also been recognized consistently by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for earning the Gold Performance Achievement Award
in all three modules of the Get With The GuidelinesSM program: coronary artery disease, stroke and
heart failure.

For more information about Cleveland Clinic Florida, visit www.clevelandclinicflorida.org.