SAN RAMON, CA — San Ramon Regional Hospital is one of just four Bay Area hospitals that did not participate in Leapfrog’s 2025 Hospital Survey, which ranks hospital safety in a variety of areas. Following a lawsuit and a change in methodology, the hospital now has a ranking of “Grade Not Assigned” for 2024 and 2025.
San Ramon Regional, which is part of the Tenet Healthcare hospital system, did not participate in Leapfrog’s rankings in 2024 and 2025. Despite the nonparticipation, Leapfrog still initially assigned them a C grade for fall 2025. Tenet sued Leapfrog, alleging misleading practices, and a South Florida judge ruled in their favor, ordering them to retroactively remove grades for the five hospitals. Leapfrog subsequently removed grades for roughly 450 hospitals nationwide that did not participate in the 2024 and 2025 surveys.
According to the lawsuit, missing survey responses automatically triggered “Limited Achievement,” the lowest rating, on several key patient-safety measures, which could affect roughly a third of the final safety grade. Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida ruled that the survey “has no scientific basis, unfairly penalizes non-participating hospitals, and misrepresents hospital safety.” Judge Middlebrooks also ruled that the rankings could mislead the public about actual patient safety.
“Although the court ruling only applied to five hospitals, Leapfrog does not apply programmatic changes to individual hospitals because the Hospital Safety Grade is a national program. Leapfrog is pursuing an appeal and reviewing the Safety Grade methodology with its National Expert Panel to ensure the Hospital Safety Grade continues to be useful for consumers. Any proposed methodology changes will be announced and made available for public comment,” Lauren Bailey, director of communication for the Leapfrog Group, told Patch in an email.
Patch is awaiting comment from Tenet Healthcare Corporation.
Last November, when the now-redacted 2025 ranking was released and the litigation was still pending, Tenet accused the Leapfrog Group of “dangerous and misleading safety grades.” In a statement provided to Patch, the San Ramon Regional Medical Center alleged that Leapfrog “deliberately changed its Hospital Safety Grade scoring methodology to punish hospitals that decline to participate in its survey” for “commercial reasons.”
Leapfrog President and CEO Leah Binder issued a strong rebuttal.
“Leapfrog is an independent not-for-profit watchdog organization with transparency at its core and no commercial interest whatsoever in giving hospitals like this one poor grades,” Binder said in a statement shared with Patch. “By contrast, Tenet Healthcare, which owns this hospital, is a publicly traded for-profit company with a strong commercial interest in silencing a much smaller nonprofit for having the audacity to give them bad grades.”
37 out of the Bay Area’s 41 hospitals did participate in Leapfrog’s Survey. Nearby, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley scored an A; Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley, San Leandro Hospital, and Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Walnut Creek all scored a B, and John Muir Medical Center Walnut Creek scored a C.
See here for all rankings.
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