WA’s Safest Hospitals: Latest Ratings Released For Fall

WASHINGTON — Several Washington 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 Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog 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 the Evergreen State, 16 hospitals received an A, 11 hospitals received a B, 18 hospitals received a C and one hospital received a D grade. No Washington hospitals received an F.

Here are the ratings, according to Leapfrog:

A

• Virginia Mason Medical Center (Seattle)
• Island Hospital (Anacortes)
• St. Clare Hospital (Lakewood)
• Swedish Medical Center Cherry Hill (Seattle)
• Swedish Medical Center First Hill (Seattle)
• PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center (Bellingham)
• PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center (Longview)
• PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center (Vancouver)
• Overlake Hospital Medical Center (Bellevue)
• Kadlec Regional Medical Center (Richland)
• Cascade Valley Hospital (Arlington)
• St. Joseph Medical Center of Tacoma (Tacoma)
• EvergreenHealth (Kirkland)
• St. Francis Hospital of Federal Way (Federal Way)
• St. Anthony Hospital (Gig Harbor)
• St. Michael Medical Center (Silverdale)

B

• Providence St. Mary Medical Center (Walla Walla)
• Skagit Valley Hospital (Mount Vernon)
• St. Anne Hospital (Burien)
• Swedish Edmonds Hospital (Edmonds)
• Swedish Medical Center Ballard (Seattle)
• Samaritan Hospital (Moses Lake)
• Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center (Spokane)
• MultiCare Valley Hospital (Spokane Valley)
• Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center (Vancouver)
• Swedish Health Services Issaquah (Issaquah)
• Trios Southridge Hospital (Kennewick)

C

• University of Washington Medical Center - Northwest (Seattle)
• University of Washington Medical Center - Montlake (Seattle)
• Providence Regional Medical Center Everett (Everett)
• MultiCare Auburn Medical Center (Auburn)
• Central Washington Hospital (Wenatchee)
• Providence Centralia Hospital (Centralia)
• Providence St. Peter Hospital (Olympia)
• Harbor Regional Health Community Hospital (Aberdeen)
• Yakima Valley Memorial (Yakima)
• MultiCare Allenmore Hospital (Tacoma)
• MultiCare Deaconess Hospital (Spokane)
• Harborview Medical Center (Seattle)
• Providence Holy Family Hospital (Spokane)
• MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital (Puyallup)
• Valley Medical Center (Renton)
• Tacoma General Hospital (Tacoma)
• Capital Medical Center (Olympia)
• MultiCare Covington Medical Center (Covington)

D

• Olympic Medical Center (Port Angeles)

With the release of its fall report, The Leapfrog Group has analyzed hospital safety data for a decade. Most hospitals have improved over time under more public scrutiny, Leapfrog Group President and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release.

“For a long time, the health care community tried to improve safety, but progress stalled,” Binder said. “The big difference over this decade is that for the first time, we publicly reported each hospital’s record on patient safety, and that galvanized the kind of change we all hoped for.

“It’s not enough change, but we are on the right track,” she said.

Notably, hospitals reduced what are called “never events” — accidents and errors that never should have happened, the release said. Incidents of falls and trauma and incidents in which objects were unintentionally left in a patient’s body during surgery were down 25 percent, the watchdog group said.

Also, according to the report, progress on the number of patients treated for health care-associated infections declined to pre-pandemic levels.

Nearly two dozen hospitals have received straight-A reports every year since the Leapfrog Group began its safety grades in 2012. They are:

• Arizona: Mayo Clinic Hospital, Phoenix.
• California: French Hospital Medical Center, San Luis Obispo; Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center, Anaheim; Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, San Luis Obispo.
• Colorado: Rose Medical Center, Denver.
• Florida: AdventHealth Daytona Beach, Daytona Beach.
• Illinois: Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, Elmhurst; Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, Winfield; University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago.
• Massachusetts: Beverly Hospital, Beverly; Saint Anne's Hospital, Fall River.
• Michigan: University of Michigan Health, Ann Arbor.
• Mississippi: Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle, Columbus.
• North Carolina: Rex Hospital, Inc., Raleigh.
• Ohio: OhioHealth Dublin Methodist Hospital, Dublin;OhioHealth Grady Memorial Hospital, Delaware.
• Texas: St. David's Medical Center, Austin.
• Virginia: Inova Loudoun Hospital, Leesburg; Sentara CarePlex Hospital, Hampton; Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk, Virginia; Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center, Williamsburg.
• Washington: Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle.

Search for your hospital’s fall 2022 safety grade and read more about the methodology.