Georgia's Safest Hospitals: Latest Ratings Released For Fall

GEORGIA — Several Georgia hospitals have made improvements in protecting patients from preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections while others have fallen short, according to the Fall 2022 Hospital Safety Grades report released Wednesday.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog group, used an academic grading scale with five letter grades to score nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide on more than 30 measures of patient safety. Leapfrog says its hospital rating system is the only one in the country focusing solely on a hospital’s ability to protect patients from preventable errors.

In Georgia, 18 hospitals received an A, 15 hospitals received a B, 24 hospitals received a C and two hospitals received a D grade. Zero hospitals received an F.

Here are the ratings, according to Leapfrog:

A

• Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston
• Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany
• Piedmont Augusta Hospital in Augusta
• Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah
• East Georgia Regional Medical Center in Statesboro
• Colquitt Regional Medical Center in Moultrie
• Emanuel Medical Center in Swainsboro
• Fairview Park Hospital in Dublin
• Wellstar Cobb Medical Center in Austell
• Southeast Georgia Health System - Camden Campus in St. Marys
• Piedmont Macon Medical Center in Macon
• AdventHealth Redmond in Rome
• Doctors Hospital of Augusta in Augusta
• Wellstar Douglas Medical Center in Douglasville
• Piedmont Macon North Hospital in Macon
• Piedmont Mountainside Hospital in Jasper
• Piedmont Newnan Hospital in Newnan
• Piedmont Columbus Regional Northside in Columbus

B

• Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton in Braselton
• Piedmont Fayette Hospital in Fayetteville
• Southern Regional Medical Center in Riverdale
• Piedmont Rockdale Hospital in Conyers
• Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta
• Piedmont Columbus Regional Midtown in Columbus
• Floyd Medical Center in Rome
• Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow in Winder
• Wellstar Paulding Hospital in Hiram
• Wellstar Kennestone Medical Center in Marietta
• Piedmont Cartersville Medical Center in Cartersville
• Wellstar West Georgia Medical Center in LaGrange
• Tanner Medical Center of Carrollton in Carrollton
• Northside Hospital Forsyth in Cumming
• Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton

C

• Northside Hospital Cherokee in Canton
• Emory University Hospital in Atlanta
• Tanner Medical Center of Villa Rica in Villa Rica
• Piedmont Newton Hospital in Covington
• AdventHealth Gordon in Calhoun
• Southeast Georgia Health System - Brunswick Campus in Brunswick
• Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville
• Northside Hospital Duluth in Duluth
• Wellstar Spalding Regional Hospital in Griffin
• Piedmont Walton in Monroe
• Emory University Midtown in Atlanta
• Grady Memorial Hospital Corp. in Atlanta
• Emory St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta
• Northside Hospital Gwinnett in Lawrenceville
• Dodge County Hospital in Eastman
• Wayne Memorial Hospital in Jesup
• Memorial Health Meadows Hospital in Vidalia
• St. Francis-Emory Healthcare in Columbus
• Northside Hospital Atlanta in Atlanta
• Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge
• Piedmont Eastside Medical Center in Snellville
• North Fulton Medical Center in Roswell
• Emory Johns Creek Hospital in Johns Creek
• Northeast Georgia Medical Center Lumpkin in Dahlonega

D

• Emory Hillandale Hospital in Lithonia
• Emory Decatur Hospital in Decatur

Patch has reached out to Emory Hillandale and Emory Decatur for comment and will update when there is a reply.

St. Joseph’s Hospital and Candler Hospital, both in Savannah, were not graded.

With the release of its fall report, The Leapfrog Group has analyzed hospital safety data for a decade. Most hospitals have improved over time under more public scrutiny, Leapfrog Group President and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release.

“For a long time, the health care community tried to improve safety, but progress stalled,” Binder said. “The big difference over this decade is that for the first time, we publicly reported each hospital’s record on patient safety, and that galvanized the kind of change we all hoped for.

“It’s not enough change, but we are on the right track,” she said.

Notably, hospitals reduced what are called “never events” — accidents and errors that never should have happened, the release said. Incidents of falls and trauma and incidents in which objects were unintentionally left in a patient’s body during surgery were down 25 percent, the watchdog group said.

Also, according to the report, progress on the number of patients treated for health care-associated infections declined to pre-pandemic levels.

Nearly two dozen hospitals have received straight-A reports every year since the Leapfrog Group began its safety grades in 2012. They are:

• Arizona: Mayo Clinic Hospital, Phoenix
• California: French Hospital Medical Center, San Luis Obispo; Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center, Anaheim; Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, San Luis Obispo
• Colorado: Rose Medical Center, Denver
• Florida: AdventHealth Daytona Beach, Daytona Beach.
• Illinois: Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, Elmhurst; Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, Winfield; University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago
• Massachusetts: Beverly Hospital, Beverly; Saint Anne's Hospital, Fall River
• Michigan: University of Michigan Health, Ann Arbor
• Mississippi: Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle, Columbus
• North Carolina: Rex Hospital, Inc., Raleigh
• Ohio: OhioHealth Dublin Methodist Hospital, Dublin;OhioHealth Grady Memorial Hospital, Delaware
• Texas: St. David's Medical Center, Austin,
• Virginia: Inova Loudoun Hospital, Leesburg; Sentara CarePlex Hospital, Hampton; Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk, Virginia; Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center, Williamsburg
• Washington: Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle

Search for your hospital’s fall 2022 safety grade and read more about the methodology.