New PA Hospital Safety Ratings Released: 8 Get 'D' Grade

PENNSYLVANIA — Eight Pennsylvania hospitals received a D grade for hospital safety, according to new fall 2019 ratings released Thursday by the Leapfrog Group. In that same analysis, 56 hospitals in the Keystone State received an A grade, 32 got a B, and 27 got a C.

RELATED: 14 Pennsylvania Hospitals Ranked Among America's Best In 2020

The nonprofit group, which releases the safety ratings twice a year, found that of the more than 2,600 hospitals graded in the country, 33 percent earned an A grade, a 1 percent increase from the last round of safety grades, released in Spring 2019.

Grades range from A to F. The Leapfrog Group explains that its rating system is focused entirely on errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.

The group relies on a panel of experts to select the measures used in the methodology and to develop a scoring system. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

Here are the safety grades Pennsylvania hospitals were given by the Leapfrog Group for the fall 2019 analysis:

Click on the hospital to see details on its score

A

• Abington Health Lansdale Hospital
• Abington Memorial Hospital
• Butler Memorial Hospital
• Chester County Hospital
• DLP Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center
• Doylestown Hospital
• Evangelical Community Hospital
• Geisinger Bloomsburg Hospital
• Geisinger Lewistown Hospital
• Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center
• Grove City Medical Center
• Heritage Valley Beaver
• Heritage Valley Sewickley
• Holy Redeemer Hospital and Medical Center
• Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
• Indiana Regional Medical Center
• Jeanes Hospital
• Lancaster General Hospital
• Latrobe Hospital
• Lehigh Valley Hospital - Cedar Crest
• Lehigh Valley Hospital - Hazleton
• Lehigh Valley Hospital - Muhlenberg
• Lehigh Valley Hospital - Pocono
• Meadville Medical Center
• Penn Highlands Huntingdon
• Penn Presbyterian Medical Center
• Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
• Reading Hospital
• St. Clair Hospital
• St. Luke's Hospital - Allentown Campus
• St. Luke's Hospital - Anderson Campus
• St. Luke's Hospital - Miners Campus
• St. Luke's Monroe Campus
• St. Luke's Quakertown Hospital
• St. Luke's University Hospital - Bethlehem Campus
• St. Mary Medical Center
• Suburban Community Hospital
• UPMC Altoona
• UPMC Bedford Memorial
• UPMC Carlisle
• UPMC Community
• UPMC Hamot
• UPMC Harrisburg
• UPMC Horizon - Greenville Campus
• UPMC McKeesport
• UPMC Mercy
• UPMC Northwest
• UPMC Passavant
• UPMC Passavant - Cranberry
• UPMC Presbyterian
• UPMC S. Margaret
• UPMC West Shore
• Washington Hospital
• WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital
• WellSpan Ephrata Community Hospital
• WellSpan Gettysburg Hospital

B

• Bryn Mawr Hospital
• Canonsburg General Hospital
• Chan Soon-Shiong Medical Center at Windber
• Einstein Medical Center Montgomery
• Forbes Hospital
• Geisinger Community Medical Center
• Geisinger Holy Spirit Hospital
• Geisinger Medical Center Danville
• Jefferson Bucks
• Jefferson Frankford
• Jefferson Regional Medical Center
• Jefferson Torresdale
• Lehigh Valley Hospital - Schuylkill
• Lower Bucks Hospital
• Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital
• Mercy Philadelphia Hospital
• Monongahela Valley Hospital
• Punxsutawney Area Hospital
• Sharon Regional Medical Center
• St. Luke's Sacred Heart Campus
• Temple University Hospital
• UPMC East
• UPMC Horizon - Shenango Valley Campus
• UPMC Pinnacle Lititz
• UPMC Pinnacle Memorial
• UPMC Shadyside
• UPMC Somerset
• UPMC Susquehanna - Williamsport
• Wellspan Good Samaritan Hospital
• WellSpan York Hospital
• West Penn Hospital
• Westmoreland Hospital

C

• ACMH Hospital
• Allegheny General Hospital
• Allegheny Valley Hospital
• Bradford Regional Medical Center
• Brandywine Hospital
• Clarion Hospital
• Easton Hospital
• Einstein Medical Center Elkins Park
• Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia
• Geisinger Shamokin Area Community Hospital
• Grand View Health
• Jennersville Hospital
• Lankenau Medical Center
• Moses Taylor Hospital
• Mount Nittany Medical Center
• Paoli Hospital
• Phoenixville Hospital
• Regional Hospital of Scranton
• Riddle Hospital
• Saint Vincent Hospital
• St Joseph Regional Health Network
• Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
• Thomas Jefferson University Hospital - Methodist Hospital Campus
• Uniontown Hospital
• UPMC Jameson
• UPMC Pinnacle Hanover
• Wayne Memorial Hospital

D

• Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital
• Mercy Health System - Nazareth Hospital
• Ohio Valley General Hospital
• Pennsylvania Hospital
• Pottstown Hospital
• St. Luke's Gnaden Huetten Campus
• Warren General Hospital
• Wilkes-Barre General Hospital

In last fall's ratings, eight Pennsylvania hospitals also received a D grade, but some of them are different this time around. For example, Wilkes-Barre General Hospital previously received a C but has recently received a D. Lehigh Valley Hospital- Schuylkill, which in the fall of 2018 got a D, is now a B.

The release of the Fall 2019 safety grades coincides with the 20th anniversary of a published report that revealed nearly 100,000 lives are lost every year because of preventable medical errors.

“In stark contrast to 20 years ago, we’re now able to pinpoint where the problems are, and that allows us to grade hospitals,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a press release. “It also allows us to better track progress. Encouragingly, we are seeing fewer deaths from the preventable errors we monitor in our grading process.”

Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes performance measures taken from federal government data and the group’s own hospital survey to “produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.”

Maine, Utah, Virginia, Oregon and North Carolina had the highest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade. Three states — Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota — did not have a single hospital that received an A grade.