Joliet Hospital Gets B Grade in Safety Rankings

The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by employers and health-care providers, announced its Spring 2016 hospital safety rankings Monday, a measure of how safe a hospital is for patients.

Presence St. Joseph Medical Center, located at 333 N. Madison Street in Joliet, was given a B grade.

Leapfrog looked at medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections to determine the grades. The goal was to determine a patient's risk of further injury or infection if they visited a certain hospital.

Hospitals given a B rating by Leapfrog had a 9 percent higher risk of avoidable death than A hospitals. That number jumps to 35 percent in C hospitals and 50 percent higher in D and F hospitals.

The analysis estimates that 33,459 lives could be saved if every hospital improved their safety record to A standards. Still, the study estimates 43,903 avoidable deaths in A hospitals each year.

“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,” Leapfrog President Leah Binder said in a press release. “The Hospital Safety Score alerts consumers to the dangers, but as this analysis shows, even A hospitals are not perfectly safe.”

Leapfrog releases its rankings twice a year. Last year, Presence received an A grade in the spring and a B grade in the fall.