MD Hospital Safety Grades 2022: The Best And Worst

MARYLAND — Seven hospitals in Maryland received top marks, but others didn’t quite measure up in the Spring 2022 Hospital Safety Grades report released Tuesday by The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog group.

The 2022 ratings reflect care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Leapfrog Group said its and other groups’ research showed the pandemic reversed years of progress in patient safety.

The pandemic has had a negative effect on “health care delivery at every level and setting, from staffing shortages to increased infections to the very care patients receive,” according to the Adult Patient Experience at Acute Care Hospitals survey, also released Tuesday by The Leapfrog Group.

“The health care workforce has faced unprecedented levels of pressure during the pandemic, and as a result, patients' experience with their care appears to have suffered,” Leapfrog Group president and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release. “We commend the workforce for their heroic efforts these past few years and now strongly urge hospital leadership to recommit to improved care — from communication to responsiveness — and get back on track with patient safety outcomes.”

In Maryland, seven hospitals received an "A" grade, 14 hospitals received a "B" grade, 17 hospitals received a "C" grade and two hospitals received a "D" grade. No Maryland hospitals received an "F" grade.

Here are the rankings, according to Leapfrog:

A

• Anne Arundel Medical Center, Annapolis
• Garrett Regional Medical Center, Oakland
• MedStar St. Mary's Hospital, Leonardtown
• Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore
• The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Easton, Easton
• University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson

B

• Doctors Community Hospital, Lanham
• Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Germantown
• Howard County General Hospital, Columbia
• Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore
• MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, Baltimore
• MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital, Baltimore
• MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, Olney
• MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore
• Suburban Hospital, Bethesda
• TidalHealth Peninsula Regional, Inc., Salisbury
• UM Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Glen Burnie
• UM Harford Memorial Hospital, Havre De Grace
• Union Hospital, Elkton
• University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus, Baltimore

C

• Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center, Fort Washington
• Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Rockville
• Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Silver Spring
• Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital, Baltimore
• Atlantic General Hospital, Berlin
• CalvertHealth Medical Center, Prince Frederick
• Carroll Hospital Center, Westminster
• Frederick Health Hospital, Frederick
• Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Towson
• MedStar Harbor Hospital, Baltimore
• MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center, Clinton
• Meritus Medical Center, Hagerstown
• Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center, La Plata
• University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, Bel Air
• UPMC Western Maryland, Cumberland

D

• Northwest Hospital, Randallstown
• University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center, Upper Marlboro

F

• No Maryland hospitals received an F grade.

The letter grades assigned to nearly 3,000 U.S general hospitals were based 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, accidents, injuries and infections.

Included in the 30 are five that research has shown to directly affect patient outcomes, but can be improved with greater communication between caregivers and patients — the number of central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, infections from colon surgery, MRSA (Staphylococcus) blood laboratory-identified events, and facility-wide inpatient diarrhea events.

When there’s communication about medications, for example, that can lead to fewer hospitalizations for conditions such as sepsis and blood clots, fewer complications, and decreases in the incidence of respiratory failure, Leapfrog said.

Among the findings:

• Thirty-three percent of hospitals received an “A,” 24 percent received a “B,” 36 percent received a “C,” 7 percent received a “D.” and fewer than 1 percent received an “F”.
• The states with the highest percentages of “A” hospitals are North Carolina, Virginia, Utah, Colorado and Michigan.
• There were no “A” hospitals in Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota or the District of Columbia.

To determine each hospital’s grade, a panel of medical experts selected 30 evidence-based measures of patient safety such as postoperative sepsis, blood leakage and kidney injury. They then determined the weight of each measure based on evidence, opportunity for improvement and patient impact.

Data on each measure was collected through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Information from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, available to all hospitals to complete, also affects grades.

Currently, Leapfrog does not assign grades to military or Veterans Administration hospitals, critical access hospitals, specialty hospitals, children’s hospitals or outpatient surgery centers.

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade methodology has been peer-reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.

The full methodology for the 2022 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is available online.

This story has been updated to reflect that Howard County General Hospital in Columbia received a "B" grade.