MD's Safest Hospitals: New Ratings Released, 8 Facilities Earn Top Grades

MARYLAND — Several Maryland 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, 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.

Eight Maryland hospitals received an "A," 17 scored a "B," 15 notched a "C" and one took home a "D." No Maryland hospitals received an "F."

Here are the ratings, according to Leapfrog:

A

• University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center (Towson)
• Mercy Medical Center (Baltimore)
• Anne Arundel Medical Center (Annapolis)
• MedStar St. Mary's Hospital (Leonardtown)
• University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center (Glen Burnie)
• MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital (Baltimore)
• Garrett Regional Medical Center (Oakland)
• University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Easton (Easton)

B

• University of Maryland Medical Center (Baltimore)
• University of Maryland Harford Memorial Hospital (Havre de Grace)
• The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore)
• MedStar Montgomery Medical Center (Olney)
• Suburban Hospital (Bethesda)
• MedStar Union Memorial Hospital (Baltimore)
• Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center (Baltimore)
• ChristianaCare - Union Hospital (Elkton)
• MedStar Harbor Hospital (Baltimore)
• Howard County General Hospital (Columbia)
• Doctors Community Medical Center (Lanham)
• MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center (Clinton)
• Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center (Fort Washington)
• Holy Cross Germantown Hospital (Germantown)
• Atlantic General Hospital (Berlin)
• TidalHealth Peninsula Regional, Inc. (Salisbury)
• UPMC Western Maryland (Cumberland)

C

• Holy Cross Hospital (Silver Spring)
• Frederick Health Hospital (Frederick)
• Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital (Baltimore)
• Sinai Hospital of Baltimore (Baltimore)
• MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center (Baltimore)
• Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center (Silver Spring)
• Carroll Hospital Center (Westminster)
• University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center (La Plata)
• University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus (Baltimore)
• CalvertHealth Medical Center (Prince Frederick)
• Northwest Hospital (Randallstown)
• Greater Baltimore Medical Center (Towson)
• University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center (Bel Air)
• Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center (Rockville)
• Meritus Medical Center (Hagerstown)

D

• University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center (Upper Marlboro)

Patch asked the University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center for a comment on its grade. The hospital has not yet responded. We will update this story if we hear back.

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; 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.