Hospital Safety Grades: The Best — And Worst —In Colorado

A nationwide hospital safety analysis has found that 17 hospitals in Colorado received an “A” grade for preventing medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections, which collectively are the third leading cause of death in America. No hospital in Colorado received a "D" or worse, but 15 received a grade of "C."

The Leapfrog Group released its bi-yearly hospital safety grades on Tuesday, finding that hospitals overall have improved in reducing the number of avoidable deaths. The group assessed roughly 2,500 hospitals. Of those, 30 percent earned an “A,” 28 percent earned a “B,” 35 percent a “C,” 6 percent a “D” and 1 percent an “F.”

Colorado moved up in national rankings to No. 6 in the U.S. with 47.22 percent of state hospitals receiving an A. In the fall, 2017 rankings, Colorado was ranked No. 10 in the U.S.

“The national numbers on death and harm in hospitals have alarmed us for decades. What we see in the new round of Safety Grades are signs of many hospitals making significant improvements in their patient safety record,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a release.

The assessment system assigns school-style letter grades to general acute-care hospitals. The hope is to determine a patient’s risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital.

Here are the full list of hospital grades.

Here are the Colorado hospitals that got "A" grades.

1. Centura Health-Penrose Hospital, Colorado Springs: A
2. Centura Health-Porter Adventist Hospital, Denver: A
3. Centura Health-St. Francis Medical Center, Colorado Springs: A
4. Centura Health-St. Mary Corwin Medical Center, Pueblo: A
5. Longmont United Hospital, Longmont: A
6. Lutheran Medical Center, Wheat Ridge: A
7. McKee Medical Center, Loveland: A
8. Medical Center of Aurora, Aurora: A
9. North Colorado Medical Center, Greeley: A
10. North Suburban Medical Center, Thornton, A
11. Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Denver: A
12. Rose Medical Center, Denver: A
13. Saint Joseph Hospital, Denver: A
14. Sky Ridge Medical Center, Lone Tree: A
15. St. Mary's Hospital and Medical Center, Grand Junction: A
16. Swedish Medical Center, Denver: A
17. UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital, Fort Collins: A

Leapfrog's team gave Centura Health-Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver an "A" grade. The hospital closed briefly in April after an infection breach caused by improper cleaning of surgical tools that may have impacted 5,800 patients.

Among the findings nationally, five hospitals that received an “A” grade for the first time this year previously received an “F” grade, the group said, and 46 hospitals earned an “A” for the first time since the grading system began six years ago.

Leapfrog said its analysis showed 89 hospitals that had previously received “D” or “F” ratings had improved to an “A” this year.

Rhode Island, Hawaii, Wisconsin and Idaho all previously ranked near the bottom of the state rankings with low percentages of “A” hospitals, but now all rank in the top 10.

Here are some of the other findings:

• The five states with the highest percentage of “A” hospitals this spring are Hawaii, Idaho, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Virginia
• Ten states have hospitals with “F” grades are California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey and New York

Leapfrog says you shouldn’t refuse emergency care because of a bad safety grade. They’re meant to be used as a guide for planned events and a research tool for potential emergencies.

Patch reporters Dan Hampton and Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images