Hospital Safety Rankings Released: Massachusetts Makes Top Five

Boston, MA — They Bay State broke the top five in the newest hospital safety rankings, out Monday from The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by employers and health-care providers.

The rankings, which measure how safe a hospital is for patients, place Massachusetts at No. 4, nationwide. The top spot went to Vermont, followed by Maine and Rhode Island.

Hospitals were given a letter grade from A through F based on several factors. Of the 2,571 hospitals studied nationwide, 798 earned an A, 639 earned a B, 957 earned a C, 162 earned a D and 15 earned an F.

• You can take a look at how the Boston hospitals fared here.

State rankings were based on a percentage of state hospitals receiving an A grade.

• See the full list of hospital safety scores here.

Leapfrog also conducted an analysis with researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine's Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. They estimated that 206,021 avoidable deaths occur each year in U.S. hospitals.

According to the rankings, Winchester Hospital has received its third consecutive A grade in terms of patient safety. The hospital has received an A grade in each grading session since the Spring of 2014.

Leapfrog looked at medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections to determine the grades. The goal was to determine a patient's risk of further injury or infection if they visited a certain hospital.

Hospitals given a B rating by Leapfrog had a 9 percent higher risk of avoidable death than A hospitals. That number jumps to 35 percent in C hospitals and 50 percent higher in D and F hospitals.

The analysis estimates that 33,459 lives could be saved if every hospital improved their safety record to A standards. Still, the study estimates 43,903 avoidable deaths in A hospitals each year.

Patch has reached out to Leapfrog for more information, and we'll let you know when we hear back.

Leapfrog releases its rankings twice a year.

“It is time for every hospital in America to put patient safety at the top of their priority list, because tens of thousands of lives are stake,” Leapfrog President Leah Binder said in a press release. “The Hospital Safety Score alerts consumers to the dangers, but as this analysis shows, even A hospitals are not perfectly safe.”

Marc Torrence, Patch National Staff contributed to this report.