1 CT Hospital Gets 'D' Grade For Patient Safety, Nonprofit Says

Earlier this week, we told you about Connecticut's safest hospitals. But what about the hospitals that received the lowest grade for patient safety?

Hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group Leapfrog twice a year. The group says the goal of the rankings is to determine a patient's risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital.

The most recent batch of grades was released on Tuesday.

When it comes the the lowest-ranked hospitals in Connecticut, only one received a D grade. Thirteen hospitals got a C.

Luckily, there were no Connecticut hospitals that received an F. See the safest hospitals in the state here, according to Leapfrog.

Leapfrog says 27 evidence-based measures of patient safety are used to calculate the grades. Using that information, a numerical score is created and then converted into one of five letter grades.

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. Medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections are taken into account by Leapfrog when calculating the grades.

The nonprofit says its Hospital Safety Grade methodology has been peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

About 32 percent of hospitals nationwide get an A grade. About 25 percent get a B, 37 percent get a C, and just 6 percent get a D. Less than one percent are graded an F.

"Errors and infections in hospitals are the third leading cause of death in America, and people deserve to know which of their hospitals are best at preventing them," Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a press release.

Bridgeport Hospital was the only hospital to receive a D. Here are the hospitals which received a C.

• Danbury Hospital
• Greenwich Hospital
• Hartford Hospital
• MidState Medical Center
• Milford Hospital
• New Milford Hospital
• Norwalk Hospital
• Saint Mary's Hospital
• St. Vincent's Medical Center
• The Hospital of Central Connecticut
• Waterbury Hospital
• Yale-New Haven Hospital
• Yale-New Haven Hospital Saint Raphael Campus

Click here to see the Connecticut hospitals that received the highest safety grades.

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