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Leapfrog: Hospitals give sustained effort in patient safety

Nearly 350 hospitals got the new "Straight A" designation from Leapfrog, signaling top patient safety performance for at least two years.

Sara Heath
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Published: 30 Apr 2025

The Leapfrog Group is honoring 346 healthcare organizations for being "Straight A" hospitals, meaning the facilities have received top marks from the company for overall patient safety for more than two years.

Released as a part of Leapfrog's Spring 2025 Safety Grades, the Straight A designation was awarded to 12% of all eligible hospitals, the patient safety company said. Being a Straight A hospital signals sustained improvement in patient safety, which should be an industry-wide goal, according to Leah Binder, the president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group.

"All hospitals should be proud to earn an 'A,' but they should not rest on that laurel. Patient safety is a relentless, never-ending quest to put patients first," Binder said in a press release. "That’s why Leapfrog is highlighting the hospitals across the U.S. that have earned Straight A's for over two years. Sustaining an A over multiple years reflects a deep-rooted commitment to patient safety."

Within that group of more than 300 hospitals receiving the Straight A designation is a subset of 11 hospitals that have earned A's for all 27 grading rounds that Leapfrog has published over the past 13 years. Those all-time Straight A hospitals include the following:

  • Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital (Illinois).
  • French Hospital Medical Center (California).
  • Inova Loudoun Hospital (Virginia).
  • Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center (California).
  • Mayo Clinic-Phoenix (Arizona).
  • Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital (Illinois).
  • Saint Anne's Hospital (Massachusetts).
  • Sentara CarePlex Hospital (Virginia).
  • Sentara Leigh Hospital (Virginia).
  • University of Chicago Medical Center (Illinois).
  • Virginia Mason Medical Center (Washington).

Hospital patient safety performance varies by state

The Leapfrog Group also segmented out hospital patient safety performance by state, finding that some areas have a higher concentration of Straight A hospitals than others.

For example, states with the highest proportion of Straight A hospitals include Utah (29%), Connecticut (29%), New Jersey (27%), Rhode Island (22%) and Virginia (20%).

On the flip side, there were some states with no Straight A hospitals, including Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.

Those trends persisted when looking just at the spring 2025 results. The states with the highest proportion of A-rated hospitals for this grading period include Utah, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, South Carolina and Virginia. In fact, this is the fourth consecutive round of patient safety grades for which Utah has had the highest rate of A-grade hospitals.

The Leapfrog Group also flagged exemplary performance in Washington, D.C., which was the state/territory with the 11th highest proportion of A-rated hospitals. This is significant following years of suboptimal performance, The Leapfrog Group said.

"This is encouraging data, but there's still significant variation in safety across U.S. hospitals," Binder explained. "That's why it's so important for people to consult Safety Grades when making decisions about seeking care. All hospitals are not the same."

Sara Heath has reported news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.

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