Doylestown Hospital Gets 'A' Grade For Patient Safety

A nonprofit watchdog group has released safety grades for five hospitals in Bucks County, including Doylestown Hospital. The local hospital received an A grade.

Leapfrog, which has been doing these safety rankings since 2001, says the aim is to help patients determine their risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital. In Pennsylvania, 37 hospitals got an A grade, 34 received a B, 42 got a C and five were given a D. None in Pennsylvania received an F.

The group uses 27 evidence-based measures of patient safety to calculate the grades. Applying that information, a numerical score is then created and converted into one of five letter grades.

The following Bucks County hospitals got an A grade:

• Doylestown Hospital, Doylestown
• Grand View Health, Sellersville
• St. Mary Medical Center, Langhorne

The following got a B:

• Aria Health - Bucks County Division, Langhorne

The following got a C:

• Lower Bucks Hospital, Bristol

Many Bucks County residents use Capital Health Medical Center in nearby Hopewell, New Jersey. That hospital received an A grade.

Click here to see the grades of all hospitals assessed across Pennsylvania.

Nationwide, the group assessed roughly 2,500 hospitals. Of those, 30 percent earned an A, 28 percent earned a B, 35 percent a C, 6 percent a D, and 1 percent an F.

"The national numbers on death and harm in hospitals have alarmed us for decades. What we see in the new round of Safety Grades are signs of many hospitals making significant improvements in their patient safety record," Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a release.

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