Peconic Bay Medical Center Receives 'A' Safety Grade In New Leapfrog 2025 Report

RIVERHEAD, NY — Peconic Bay Medical Center has earned a Top "A" Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group for fall 2025.

The ranking recognizing the hospital’s "consistent excellence in patient safety, a further reflection of the hospital’s ongoing commitment to providing the highest quality care for residents across Eastern Suffolk County," hospital officials said.

"This recognition affirms the exceptional work of our entire PBMC team in maintaining a culture of safety, compassion and clinical excellence,” said Amy Loeb, president of PBMC. "Every member of our staff, from physicians and nurses to support teams, plays a vital role in delivering care that our patients can trust. As our hospital continues to expand to meet the growing needs of the residents on the East End, we remain focused on ensuring that patient safety is at the heart of every step forward."

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.

According to the report, Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital received a "D" for fall 2025 and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital received a "C."

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.

In addition to maintaining top-tier safety standards, PBMC is continuing to invest in the future of health care for Eastern Suffolk County through a series of transformational expansion projects supported by community philanthropy, hospital officials said. Those projects include the Emilie Roy Corey Center for Women & Infants, slated to open early 2027, and the development of the Bill and Ruth Ann Harnisch Neurosciences Center, which are efforts designed to ensure that East End residents have access to advanced care close to home.

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.