Eleven U.S. hospitals have earned consecutive “A” safety grades from The Leapfrog Group since 2012.
The organization biannually grades nearly 3,000 acute care hospitals against 22 national patient safety measures from CMS, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and supplemental data. Read more about the methodology here.
On April 30, five hospitals that are part of Palm Beach (Fla.) Health Network filed a lawsuit against The Leapfrog Group, alleging the patient safety organization’s rankings are based on flawed methodology. The complaint alleges Leapfrog’s safety grades are “distorted by undisclosed financial incentives” and penalize hospitals that do not submit data for participation by assigning “artificially low ratings,” which unfairly damage the hospitals’ reputations. This is the third time a hospital has taken legal action against Leapfrog over its safety grade rankings. The last two were in 2017 and 2018.
In this spring’s ranking, Utah had the highest percentage of “A” hospitals for the fourth cycle in a row, and this cycle it tied with Connecticut for highest percentage of hospitals that have earned an “A” for at least two years in a row at 29%. They are followed by New Jersey (27%), Rhode Island (22%) and Virginia (20%), according to a May 1 news release from Leapfrog. This spring, there are no “A” hospitals in Iowa, North Dakota, Vermont or Wyoming.
One hospital lost its “A” grade streak since fall 2024: Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle in Columbus, Miss.
Here are the 11 hospitals with 26 consecutive “A” grades:
Arizona
Mayo Clinic in Phoenix
California
French Hospital Medical Center (San Luis Obispo)
Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center
Illinois
University of Chicago Medical Center
Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital (Elmhurst)
Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital (Winfield)
Massachusetts
St. Anne’s Hospital (Fall River)
Virginia
Inova Loudoun Hospital (Leesburg)
Sentara Leigh Hospital (Norfolk)
Sentara CarePlex Hospital (Hampton)
Washington
Virginia Mason Medical Center (Seattle)
