Maryland Hospital Safety Grades Released

In an improvement from a year ago, 10 Maryland hospitals received an A grade in hospital safety, according to new fall 2019 ratings released by the Leapfrog Group. The nonprofit group found that of the more than 2,600 hospitals graded in the country, 33 percent earned an A grade, a 1 percent increase from the last round of safety grades, released in Spring 2019. Last year, eight Maryland hospitals earned the top grade.

The Leapfrog Group explains that its rating system is focused entirely on errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.

Maine, Utah, Virginia, Oregon and North Carolina had the highest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade. Three states — Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota — did not have a single hospital that received an A grade.

New to the A grades this year in Maryland is UM Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie. “Congratulations to our dedicated staff members for providing outstanding care to our community,” the facility tweeted.

Howard County General Hospital in Columbia, part of Johns Hopkins Medicine, is also new to the A grades this year. “Congratulations to Johns Hopkins Medicine hospitals for earning top safety grades this fall,” the network said on Twitter.

Here are the grades Maryland hospitals were given by the Leapfrog Group:

A grades

• Anne Arundel Medical Center, Annapolis
• Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Germantown
• Howard County General Hospital, Columbia
• Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore
• MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital, Baltimore
• MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital, Leonardtown
• Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore
• Suburban Hospital, Bethesda
• UM Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Glen Burnie
• University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson

B grades

• Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Rockville
• Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Silver Spring
• Atlantic General Hospital, Berlin
• Carroll Hospital Center, Westminster
• Doctors Community Hospital, Lanham
• Frederick Health Hospital, Frederick
• Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Baltimore
• MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, Baltimore
• MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, Olney
• Meritus Medical Center, Hagerstown
• St. Agnes Hospital, Baltimore
• The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center, La Plata
• University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Dorchester, Cambridge
• University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Easton, Easton

C grades

• CalvertHealth Medical Center, Prince Frederick
• Fort Washington Medical Center, Fort Washington
• Garrett Regional Medical Center, Oakland\
• Holy Cross Hospital, Silver Spring
• MedStar Harbor Hospital, Baltimore
• MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center, Clinton
• MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore
• Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Salisbury
• UM Harford Memorial Hospital, Havre De Grace
• Union Hospital, Elkton
• University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Chestertown, Chestertown
• University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, Bel Air
• Western Maryland Regional Medical Center, Cumberland

D grades

• Bon Secours Hospital, Baltimore
• Northwest Hospital, Randallstown
• Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center, Cheverly

No hospitals in Maryland received an F grade.

The release of the fall 2019 safety grades coincides with the 20th anniversary of a published report that revealed nearly 100,000 lives are lost every year because of preventable medical errors.

“In stark contrast to 20 years ago, we’re now able to pinpoint where the problems are, and that allows us to grade hospitals,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a statement. “It also allows us to better track progress. Encouragingly, we are seeing fewer deaths from the preventable errors we monitor in our grading process.”

Leapfrog assigns A,B,C,D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes performance measures taken from federal government data and the group’s own hospital survey to “produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.” The group relies on a panel of experts to select the measures used in the methodology and to develop a scoring system. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

To see the story by Deb Belt as it originally appeared on Patch.com, click here. 

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