These Are MD’s Safest Hospitals, New Ranking Says

MARYLAND — A new hospital safety report released Thursday shows more than 31 percent of hospitals in Maryland earned “A” grades based on their ability to protect their patients from often preventable harm.

Among those hospitals cited in The Leapfrog Group’s Spring 2025 Hospital Safety Grades, 12 percent in Maryland were designated “Straight A” hospitals for sustaining their top scores for five or more consecutive grading periods. Nationwide, 346 hospitals — 12 percent of all eligible hospitals — were named to this select group.

According to the safety grades, no hospitals in Virginia received an 'F' or ‘D’ grade. Additionally, 12 hospitals earned a 'C'.

The biannual reports from the independent hospital safety watchdog group assign ‘A,' 'B,' 'C,' 'D ' or 'F' grades to all U.S. general hospitals based on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections. These mistakes harm one in four hospital patients and cause as many as 250,000 deaths every year.

Maryland ranks 21st among all states for the percentage of hospitals receiving “A” grades in the spring 2025 report card, up from 31st last fall.

Even more elite are 11 hospitals that have earned A grades or all 27 evaluation rounds over the 13 years of the report card. They include Mayo Clinic-Phoenix in Arizona; French Hospital Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center in California; Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital, Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois; Saint Anne’s Hospital (Massachusetts); Inova Loudoun Hospital, Sentara CarePlex Hospital and Sentara Leigh Hospital in Virginia; and Virginia Mason Medical Center in Washington.

The elite “Straight A” hospitals in Maryland cited for consistently high safety performance are:

• University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson
• Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Silver Spring
• Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center, Annapolis
• TidalHealth Peninsula Regional Inc., Salisbury
• Meritus Medical Center, Hagerstown

Leah Binder, the president and chief executive of The Leapfrog Group, said “A” grades should be a source of pride for hospitals, but she warned them not to “rest on that laurel.”

“Patient safety is a relentless, never-ending quest to put patients first,” she said in a news release. “That’s why Leapfrog is highlighting the hospitals across the U.S. that have earned Straight A’s for over two years. Sustaining an A over multiple years reflects a deep-rooted commitment to patient safety.”

Other “A” hospitals in Maryland are:

• University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore
• University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center, Upper Marlboro
• Holy Cross Hospital, Silver Spring
• Frederick Health Hospital, Frederick
• Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore
• The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital, Baltimore
• Sinai Hospital, Baltimore
• MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, Baltimore
• MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, Olney
• Suburban Hospital, Bethesda

You can see the full rankings, including the hospitals that scored lower than an 'A,' here.

The top five states with the highest share of Straight A hospitals since spring 2023 are Utah (29 percent), Connecticut (29 percent), New Jersey (27 percent), Rhode Island (22 percent) and Virginia (20 percent).

States with no Straight A hospitals for consistent performance over the past five grading cycles are Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.

The states with the highest percentage of A Grades for spring 2025 are Utah, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, South Carolina and Virginia.