North Shore Medical Ranked Among Safest Hospitals In Leapfrog Report

SALEM, MA— Several hospitals in Massachusetts received top marks, including North Shore Medical Center in Salem, but others didn’t quite measure up in the Spring 2022 Hospital Safety Grades report released Tuesday by The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog group.

The latest ratings reflect care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Leapfrog Group said its and other groups’ research showed the pandemic reversed years of progress in patient safety.

The pandemic has had a negative effect on “health care delivery at every level and setting, from staffing shortages to increased infections to the very care patients receive,” according to the Adult Patient Experience at Acute Care Hospitals survey, also released Tuesday by The Leapfrog Group.

“The health care workforce has faced unprecedented levels of pressure during the pandemic, and as a result, patients' experience with their care appears to have suffered,” Leapfrog Group president and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release. “We commend the workforce for their heroic efforts these past few years and now strongly urge hospital leadership to recommit to improved care — from communication to responsiveness — and get back on track with patient safety outcomes.”

In Massachusetts, 29 hospitals received an "A" grade, 15 hospitals received a "B" grade, and 14 hospitals received a "C" grade. No Massachusetts hospitals received a "D" or an "F" grade.

Salem's North Shore Medical Center earned an "A" grade.

Here are the state's rankings, according to Leapfrog:

A

Addison Gilbert Hospital

Baystate Franklin Medical Center

Baystate Noble Hospital

Berkshire Medical Center

Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital Plymouth

Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton

Beverly Hospital

Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital

Brigham And Women's Hospital

Cooley Dickinson Hospital

Emerson Hospital

Holy Family Hospital - Haverhill

Holy Family Hospital - Methuen

Lahey Hospital and Medical Center

Lawrence General Hospital

Marlborough Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital

Melrose-Wakefield Hospital

Mercy Medical Center of Springfield

Milford Regional Medical Center

Morton Hospital

Mount Auburn Hospital

Nashoba Valley Medical Center

North Shore Medical Center Salem Hospital

Saint Anne's Hospital

South Shore Hospital

Steward Good Samaritan Medical Center, Inc.

Tufts Medical Center

Winchester Hospital

B

Baystate Wing Hospital

Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital - Needham

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Boston Medical Center

Cape Cod Hospital

CHA Everett Hospital

HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital (Clinton)

HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital (Leominster)

Heywood Hospital

Lowell General Hospital - Main Campus

Lowell General Hospital - Saints Campus

Newton-Wellesley Hospital

St Vincent Hospital

St. Elizabeth's Medical Center

Sturdy Memorial Hospital

C

Anna Jaques Hospital

Baystate Medical Center

Carney Hospital

CHA Cambridge Hospital

Charlton Memorial Hospital

Falmouth Hospital

Harrington Memorial Hospital

Holyoke Medical Center

Metrowest Medical Center

Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital

St. Luke's Hospital

Tobey Hospital

U Mass Memorial Medical Center - Memorial Campus

U Mass Memorial Medical Center - University Campus

The letter grades assigned to nearly 3,000 U.S general hospitals were based on more than 30 measures of patient safety. Leapfrog says its hospital rating system is the only one in the country focusing solely on a hospital’s ability to protect patients from preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections.

Included in the 30 are five that research has shown to directly affect patient outcomes, but can be improved with greater communication between caregivers and patients — the number of central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, infections from colon surgery, MRSA (Staphylococcus) blood laboratory-identified events, and facility-wide inpatient diarrhea events.

When there’s communication about medications, for example, that can lead to fewer hospitalizations for conditions such as sepsis and blood clots, fewer complications, and decreases in the incidence of respiratory failure, Leapfrog said.

Among the findings:

• Thirty-three percent of hospitals received an “A,” 24 percent received a “B,” 36 percent received a “C,” 7 percent received a “D.” and fewer than 1 percent received an “F”.
• The states with the highest percentages of “A” hospitals are North Carolina, Virginia, Utah, Colorado and Michigan.
• There were no “A” hospitals in Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota or the District of Columbia.

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 2022 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is available online.