North Carolina Hospital Safety Grades Released For Fall 2018

NORTH CAROLINA — When it comes to hospital safety, 34 North Carolina hospitals received an A grade, according to new Fall 2018 ratings released by the Leapfrog Group on Thursday. The nonprofit group found that of the more than 2,600 hospitals graded in the country, 32 percent earned an A grade.

The Leapfrog Group explains that its rating system is focused entirely on errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.

New Jersey, Oregon, Virginia, Massachusetts and Texas had the highest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade. The states with the lowest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade are Connecticut, Nebraska, Washington D.C., Delaware and North Dakota, according to Leapfrog. Washington D.C., Delaware and North Dakota did not have a single hospital that received an A grade.

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Here are the North Carolina hospitals given an “A” rating by the Leapfrog Group:

• Annie Penn Hospital, Reidsville (A)
• Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital, Dunn (A)
• Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, Fayetteville (A)
• CarolinaEast Medical Center, New Bern (A)
• Carolinas Healthcare System - Northeast, Concord (A)
• Carolinas Healthcare System - University, Charlotte (A)
• Catawba Valley Medical Center, Hickory (A)
• Central Carolina Hospital, Sanford (A)
• Columbus Regional Healthcare System, Whiteville (A)
• Cone Health - Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, Greensboro (A)
• Duke Raleigh Hospital, Raleigh (A)
• Duke Regional Hospital, Durham (A)
• Duke University Hospital, Durham (A)
• FirstHealth Richmond Memorial Hospital, Rockingham (A)
• Frye Regional Medical Center, Hickory (A)
• Harris Regional Hospital, Sylva (A)
• Haywood Regional Medical Center, Clyde (A)
• High Point Regional UNC Health Care, High Point (A)
• Johnston Health, Smithfield (A)
• Johnston Health Clayton, Clayton (A)
• New Hanover Regional Medical Center, Wilmington (A)
• Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center, Bolivia (A)
• Novant Health Kernersville Medical Center, Kernersville (A)
• Novant Health Matthews Medical Center, Matthews (A)
• Novant Health Medical Park Hospital, Winston-Salem (A)
• Park Ridge Health, Hendersonville (A)
• Rex Hospital, Inc., Raleigh (A)
• Sentara Albemarle Medical Center, Elizabeth City (A)
• UNC Rockingham Hospital, Eden (A)
• University of North Carolina Hospitals, Chapel Hill (A)
• Vidant Medical Center, Greenville (A)
• WakeMed Raleigh Campus, Raleigh (A)
• Wayne UNC Health Care, Goldsboro (A)
• Wesley Long Community, Greensboro (A)

Don’t see your hospital on the list? You can go here and look up hospital grades by city. North Carolina had 22 facilities with a “B” rating and 23 with a “C” safety rating.

“Health care was an important issue in the 2018 midterm elections, yet both parties are still neglecting the third leading cause of death in America—errors and infections in hospitals,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a press release. “Every elected official, from city councilors, to senators, to the President, should hold hospitals accountable and support efforts to improve patient safety.”

Leapfrog assigns A,B,C,D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes 28 measures that are taken together to “produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.” The group uses performance measures from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

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