PA Safest Hospitals: "A" Rating For 3 In Lower Bucks

LOWER BUCKS COUNTY, PA —Three hospitals that serve residents in Lower Bucks County received an "A" rating as one of the safest hospitals in Pennsylvania while two others earned "B" ratings, according to the Fall 2022 Hospital Safety Grades report released Wednesday.

Lower Bucks Hospital in Bristol received a top grade. So did Jefferson Abington Hospital, which serves residents of Warminster, Lower and Upper Southampton and Northampton townships.

Capital Health Medical Center in Hopewell, N.J., —which treats patients from Yardley and Lower Makefield Township, among others —also received the highest grade from The Leapfrog Group.

St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown Township and Jefferson Bucks in Falls Township earned "B" ratings from the independent nonprofit healthcare watchdog group.

For Lower Bucks Hospital, the "A" rating is its second consecutive one. The hospital earned an "A" for the spring ratings after finishing 2021 with a "B" and "C", 2020 with two "C's" and 2019 with two "B's."

Lower Bucks Hospital would not comment about the rating at this time but would issue a statement at a later date, said Michelle Aliprantis, regional director of marketing and communications for Roxborough Memorial Hospital, Suburban Community Hospital and Lower Bucks Hospital.

Overall, several Pennsylvania hospitals have made improvements in protecting patients from preventable errors, accidents, injuries, and infections while others have fallen short, according to the Fall 2022 Hospital Safety Grades report released Wednesday.

The latest ratings reflect care during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw years of progress in patient safety reversed, according to research from The Leapfrog Group.

The Leapfrog Group used an academic grading scale with five letter grades to score nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide 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.

In Pennsylvania, 39 hospitals received an A, 30 hospitals received a B, and 14 hospitals received a C. The Keystone State had no hospitals with very low D and F grades. During Leapfrog's last ratings in the spring, the state had eight hospitals in the D category.

Doylestown is the only hospital in Pennsylvania and one of only 102 hospitals nationwide to achieve 13 consecutive 'A' grades.