35 IL Hospitals Earn 'A' Grade In New Safety Ranking

ILLINOIS — A new hospital safety report released Thursday shows 35 hospitals in Illinois earned “A” grades based on their ability to protect their patients from often preventable harm.

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 United States based on their ability to protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The Leapfrog Group, a watchdog founded 25 years ago, says 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.

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 says.

Hospitals in Illinois that earned A grades were as listed below. An asterisk denotes it was a Straight A rating.

• Advocate Condell Medical Center
• Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital
• Advocate Lutheran General Hospital
• Advocate Sherman Hospital
• Endeavor Health Edward Hospital
• Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital*
• Endeavor Health Evanston Hospital*
• Endeavor Health Glenbrook Hospital*
• Endeavor Health Highland Park Hospital*
• Endeavor Health Northwest Community Hospital*
• MacNeal Hospital
• McDonough District Hospital
• Morris Hospital
• Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital*
• Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital*
• Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital*
• Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital*
• Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital*
• Northwestern Medicine, Lake Forest Hospital*
• Northwestern Memorial Hospital
• OSF Healthcare Saint James - John W. Albrecht Medical Center
• OSF Saint Anthony's Health Center
• OSF St. Joseph Medical Center
• OSF St. Mary Medical Center
• Ottawa Regional Hospital and Healthcare Center dba OSF Saint Elizabeth Medical Center
• Resurrection Medical Center
• Rush University Medical Center
• Saint Joseph Hospital - Elgin
• Silver Cross Hospital*
• St Bernard Hospital
• St. Mary's Hospital - Kankakee
• UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Bolingbrook*
• UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Hinsdale*
• UChicago Medicine AdventHealth La Grange*
• University of Chicago Medical Center*

Additionally, 21 hospitals in Illinois earned B grades, 34 received C grades and 14 received D grades. The report also showed 4 Illinois hospitals received a failing F grade.

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.

Illinois ranked 17th in the percentage of A hospitals on the ranking, with 32.4 percent.

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