2 Towson Hospitals Rated Tops For Patient Safety

TOWSON, MD — Several hospitals in Maryland received top grades for safety while others didn't quite measure up, according to new spring 2020 ratings released by the Leapfrog Group this week.

The ratings of more than 2,600 hospitals focus on accidents, injuries and infections, and help to assess how well a facility prevents medical errors and other harm to patients. Safety grades are released by the nonprofit organization twice per year, in the spring and the fall.

The metrics used to determine this spring's hospital grades originated from safety data reported for periods ending in 2018 and 2019. The report does not take into account the strain the new coronavirus outbreak is placing on some hospitals where staff are experiencing shortages of drugs and protection equipment.

In Maryland, 12 hospitals received an A grade, including two in Towson: Greater Baltimore Medical Center and St. Joseph Medical Center.

Here are all 12 that got As in the spring 2020 Leapfrog hospital ratings, in alphabetical order:

• Anne Arundel Medical Center
• Garrett Regional Medical Center
• Greater Baltimore Medical Center
• Holy Cross Germantown Hospital
• Howard County General Hospital
• Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center
• MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital
• MedStar St. Mary's Hospital
• Suburban Hospital
• UM Baltimore Washington Medical Center
• University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus
• University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center

The latest grades show 33 percent of hospitals nationwide earned an "A" grade while 25 percent earned a "B." Some 35 percent earned a "C" grade, 7 percent a "D" and less than 1 percent received an "F" grade.

In Maryland, only one hospital got an "F," and that was Bon Secours in Baltimore.

To determine each state's grade, Leapfrog used up to 28 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and information from other supplemental data sources. When averaged, performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital's overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

The goal of the Hospital Safety Grade is to reduce deaths caused by hospital errors and injuries.
Leapfrog estimates that if the risk at all hospitals was equivalent to what it is at "A" hospitals, 50,000 lives at other facilities would have been saved. Overall, the researchers estimate that 160,000 lives are lost every year due to avoidable medical errors. That figure is down from 2016, when the Leapfrog Group estimated there were 205,000 avoidable deaths.

See a full description of the Leapfrog methodology for hospital safety grades.

Related:

• Greater Baltimore Medical Center Receives High Mark

This article included reporting by Patch editor Max Bennett.