Hundreds of hospitals score top marks as Leapfrog gives out safety grades

Nearly 800 hospitals earned the highest marks for safety in the Spring 2016 release of the Leapfrog Group's Hospital Safety Score, and report organizers say about 33,000 lives could be saved annually if every hospital performed that well.

According to the report, 798 hospitals earned an 'A', 639 earned a 'B', 957 earned a 'C', 1162 earned a 'D' and only 15 earned an 'F'.

[See the list: 798 hospitals earn A scores]
[See the list: Only 15 hospitals score F grades]

Leapfrog enlists a panel of patient safety experts to analyze data of recorded incidents of patient harm, as well as surveys of patient experiences and assign U.S. facilities grades based on their performance. The group publishes grades twice a year.

However, for the Spring 2016 report, Leapfrog said it considered data on two new infection measures, MRSA Bacteremia and C.difficile, both of which can have deadly consequences if patients contract these infections in a hospital setting.

"It is time for every hospital in America to put patient safety at the top of their priority list, because tens of thousands of lives are stake," said Leah Binder, President and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, in a statement.

To help make that point, Leapfrog also conducted an analysis of the report, led by Matt Austin, assistant professor at the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, to show how the grading breaks down in terms of patient harm.

According to that report, the risk of avoidable deaths among hospital patients rises 9 percent in 'B' hospitals, 35 percent in 'C' hospitals and more than 50 percent in 'D' and 'F' hospitals.

Leapfrog is not the only group rating hospitals on patient safety. Earlier in April, Healthgrades handed 466 hospitals its Patient Safety Excellence Award for 2016, a bit smaller number than the 'A' class from Leapfrog. Also, the methodology, and the time span for the data analyzed, is different for Healthgrades and Leapfrog. For a look at performance over time, Leapfrog said it named 153 hospitals as 'Straight A' facilities for their three-year record of high patient safety scores.

[Also: Healthgrades names 2016 Patient Safety Excellence Award winners; See which hospitals made the list]

"The Hospital Safety Score alerts consumers to the dangers," said Binder, "but as this analysis shows, even A hospitals are not perfectly safe."

There is progress, though. In the Fall 2015 report, Leapfrog gave 'F' grades to 34 hospitals, more than double the number that flunked in the most recent ratings.

Of the 15 that failed, only two earned 'F' grades in the past report.

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Stony Brook University Hospital in Stony Brook, New York, perhaps showed the biggest slide. That facility, a state-run hospital, fell from a 'C' grade in the fall. In fact, Stony Brook was earning 'A' grades from Leapfrog in 2012.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has also made patient harm, specifically hospital-acquired infections, a key focus in the switch to value-based reimbursement. In December 2015, CMS said it would fine 750 hospitals for high infection rates.

Twitter: @HenryPowderly