These Are San Diego County's Safest, And Least Safe, Hospitals: New Leapfrog Ranking

SAN DIEGO, CA — Twelve hospitals in San Diego County received top grades for protecting patient safety, according to a new hospital safety report released Thursday.

The Leapfrog Group's Fall 2025 Hospital Safety Grades are a biannual ranking that assigns a "A," "B," "C," "D" or "F" to all general hospitals in the U.S. based on their ability to protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The Leapfrog Group, a watchdog founded 25 years ago, said it aims to improve American health care through transparency.

The report also named "Straight A" hospitals — those earning an A grade for more than two years in a row. Six hospitals in the San Diego area earned that distinction.

Medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections are largely preventable problems that harm one in four hospital inpatients and cause as many as 250,000 deaths each year, according to The Leapfrog Group. The Safety Grade reports have been a cornerstone of that effort, the group said.

In San Diego County, 12 hospitals received an A, six hospitals received a B, and one hospital received a C. No hospitals received D or F grades.

Here are the San Diego area hospital ratings, according to Leapfrog:

A

• Kaiser Permanente - San Diego Medical Center, San Diego - Straight A
• Paradise Valley Hospital, National City - Straight A
• Scripps Green Hospital, La Jolla - Straight A
• Scripps Memorial Hospital of Encinitas, Encinitas - Straight A
• Sharp Grossmont Hospital, La Mesa - Straight A
• UC San Diego Health La Jolla - Jacobs Medical Center and Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, La Jolla - Straight A
• Kaiser Permanente Zion Medical Center, San Diego
• Naval Medical Center San Diego, San Diego
• Palomar Medical Center Escondido, Escondido
• Scripps Mercy Hospital of Chula Vista, Chula Vista
• Scripps Mercy Hospital of San Diego, San Diego
• UC San Diego Health East Campus - East Campus Medical Center, San Diego

B

• Palomar Medical Center Poway, Poway
• Scripps Memorial Hospital of La Jolla, La Jolla
• Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, Chula Vista
• Sharp Coronado Hospital and Healthcare Center, Coronado
• Sharp Memorial Hospital, San Diego
• UC San Diego Health Hillcrest - Hillcrest Medical Center, San Diego

C

• Tri-City Medical Center, Oceanside

The Leapfrog Group for the first time in the history of its report cards looked at the performance of hospitals that are part of larger networks of health care facilities that are owned or managed under a single parent organization.

"We want to understand if system leadership accelerates patient safety or not," Leah Binder, Leapfrog's president and CEO, said in a news release.

The analysis found that 90 percent of hospitals with a fall 2025 Safety Grade are part of a health system. Among A hospitals, the chance of being system-affiliated is slightly higher, at 94 percent.

The same held true for Straight A hospitals, with 95 percent of the 358 Straight A hospitals part of health systems.

All 11 hospitals that have earned an A for every grading round since 2012 are affiliated with health systems.

The 10 health systems with the highest total number of A hospitals and Straight A hospitals in the fall 2025 report are:

1. Nashville, Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare (51 A and 18 Straight A hospitals)
2. Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health (49 A and 24 Straight A hospitals)
3. Altamonte Springs, Florida-based AdventHealth (29 A and 21 Straight A hospitals)
4. Oakland, California-based Kaiser Permanente (27 A and 12 Straight A hospitals)
5. Charlotte, North Carolina-based AdvocateHealth (24 A hospitals and 1 Straight A hospital)
6. Ontario, California-based Prime Healthcare Services (24 A and 11 Straight A hospitals)
7. Falls Church, Virginia-based Defense Health Agency (18 A hospitals, and no Straight A hospitals due to the fact that military hospitals haven’t been eligible for a Safety grade for five rounds or more; they will become eligible in 2026)
8. Brentwood, Tennessee-based Lifepoint Health (16 A and 2 Straight A hospitals)
9. New York City-based Northwell Health (15 A and 3 Straight A hospitals)
10. Sacramento-based Sutter Health (15 A and 3 Straight A hospitals)

Also according to the report, the top five states for the largest percentages of A hospitals are Utah, Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut and North Carolina, respectively.

California tied for sixth in the percentage of A hospitals on the ranking.

Four states — Iowa, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming — have no A hospitals.