Leapfrog: Hospitals improved in 17 patient safety measures

Patient safety is on the upswing, with new data from The Leapfrog Group showing improvements in key patient safety measures.

As part of its spring 2026 Safety Grades, the organization -- known for assigning participating hospitals letter-grade ratings based on performance on patient safety metrics -- said there's been marked improvement nationwide since years prior..

However, according to Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, there's still variation in how individual hospitals perform.

"The good news is that hospitals across the country are making meaningful strides in patient safety and helping save countless lives," Binder said in a press release. "But not all hospitals are the same. That's why it's so important for people to consult Safety Grades and do their research when choosing a hospital."

The Leapfrog Group reported improvement in patient safety metrics across healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), medication safety and patient experience.

For example, in 2022, the organization reported all-time low safety scores for HAIs, indicating that these infections were occurring frequently. In this latest batch of patient safety reporting, The Leapfrog Group documented significant improvement across the following four measures:

• 50% decrease in central line-associated bloodstream infections.
• 45% decrease in catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
• 42% decrease in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
• 30% decrease in Clostridium difficile.

Additionally, The Leapfrog Group reported greater adoption of health IT designed to improve medication safety. This is critical, the organization said, as medication errors are among the most common types of errors in hospitals.

In 2018, only 66% of hospitals had met Leapfrog's standard for using computerized physician order entry, which can reduce harm from prescribing errors by more than half. But by 2025, the year on which the 2026 rankings are based, 90% had adopted CPOE.

Similarly, Leapfrog said that only 47% of hospitals had met its standard for adopting bar code medication administration in 2018. By 2025, 93% had.

Finally, in terms of patient experience, The Leapfrog Group noted key improvements across nurse communication, doctor communication, staff responsiveness, communication about medicine and discharge information. Each of these patient experience domains saw an average of one percentage point improvement since an all-time low performance in 2023, Leapfrog said.