Northside Cherokee Earns Mediocre Marks In Leapfrog’s 2021 Grades

CANTON, GA — How safe is Northside Hospital Cherokee in Canton? While you’re likely in good hands, new safety grades released by a national watchdog group focused on improving health care safety show the facility might have room for improvement.

The Leapfrog Group on Wednesday released the fall 2021 Hospital Safety Grade, which assigns a letter grade to the nation’s general hospitals based on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents, injuries, and infections that kill or harm patients.

This year’s list reviewed just over 2,900 hospitals, the largest number of hospitals ever graded.

“As the pandemic continues, we all have heightened awareness of the importance of hospitals in our communities and in our lives,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, in a news release. “It is critical that all hospitals put patient safety first."

"Now we have more information on more hospitals than ever before, so people can protect themselves and their families,” Binder said.

Northside Hospital Cherokee earned an overall grade of "C."

To determine each hospital’s grade, a panel of medical experts selected 30 evidence-based measures of patient safety such as postoperative sepsis, blood leakage and kidney injury. They then determined the weight of each measure based on evidence, opportunity for improvement and patient impact.

Data on each measure was collected through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Information from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, available to all hospitals to complete, also affects grades.

Currently, Leapfrog does not assign grades to military or Veterans Administration hospitals, critical access hospitals, specialty hospitals, children’s hospitals or outpatient surgery centers.

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade methodology has been peer-reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.

The full methodology for the 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is available online.

Findings from the fall 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade include:

• Thirty-two percent of hospitals received an "A” grade; 26 percent received a "B," 35 percent received a "C," 7 percent received a "D," and less than 1 percent received an "F.”

• The five states with the highest percentages of "A" hospitals are Virginia, North Carolina, Idaho, Massachusetts and Colorado.

• There were no "A" hospitals in Delaware, Washington, D.C. and North Dakota.