The Leapfrog Group released its fall 2017 Hospital Safety Grades Tuesday, assigning A through F letter grades to 2,632 acute care hospitals for patient safety performance.
Here are six things to about the safety grades and this season's update.
1. The safety grades, which Leapfrog releases every fall and spring, are based on 27 quality measures compiled by the Leapfrog Group, CMS, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the CDC and the American Hospital Association. Areas of measurement include nurse communication, hand hygiene adherence and surgical site infection rates, among others.
2. Of the more than 2,600 hospitals graded, 832 earned an A grade, 662 earned a B, 964 earned a C, 159 earned a D and 15 hospitals earned an F.
3. Hospitals given F grades were located in California, Washington, D.C., Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Mississippi and New York.
4. Rhode Island, Maine, Hawaii, Idaho and Virginia carried the highest percentage of A hospitals among all states. North Dakota, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Maryland and New York had the lowest percentage of A hospitals.
5. Oregon, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Wisconsin and Idaho displayed the most improvement since the Hospital Safety Grade rankings launched in spring 2012. Rhode Island has demonstrated the most dramatic improvement, moving from the No. 50 position in spring 2012 to the number No. 1 position in fall 2017.
6. Fifty-nine hospitals across the nation have earned an A rating in every scoring update since the ranking system's inception.
To learn more about Leapfrog safety scores, click here.
Correction: This article was updated Nov. 1 to remove Tennessee from the list of states with F hospitals. An error in the information provided by Leapfrog mistakenly mentioned Tennessee among states with F hospitals. There are no hospitals in Tennessee with a failing safety grade from Leapfrog. We regret the error.
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