9 Wisconsin Hospitals Got A ‘D’ For Patient Safety—Is Yours On The List?

WISCONSIN — A new hospital safety report released Thursday shows 17 hospitals in Wisconsin earned “A” grades based on their ability to protect their patients from often preventable harm.

The Leapfrog Group’s Spring 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.

Out of 67 hospitals evaluated in Wisconsin, 17 earned an A, 13 earned a B, 31 earned a C, and nine received a D in the Spring 2025 safety grades. Most hospitals fall in the C range.

Grade A

• Bellin Memorial Hospital (Green Bay)
• Watertown Regional Medical Center (Watertown)
• Sauk Prairie Hospital (Prairie Du Sac)
• Aurora West Allis Medical Center (West Allis)
• Aurora Medical Center Summit (Summit)
• Aurora Medical Center Sheboygan County (Sheboygan)
• Aurora Medical Center Manitowoc County (Two Rivers)
• Aurora Medical Center Grafton (Grafton)
• Aurora Medical Center of Washington County (Hartford)
• Aurora Lakeland Medical Center (Elkhorn)
• Aurora BayCare Medical Center (Green Bay)
• Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital - St. Joseph Campus (Milwaukee)
• Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital - Elmbrook Campus (Brookfield)
• Ascension NE Wisconsin - St Elizabeth Campus (Appleton)
• Mayo Clinic Health System-La Crosse (La Crosse)
• Mayo Clinic Health System-Eau Claire (Eau Claire)
• Aurora Medical Center Burlington (Burlington)

Grade B

• Beloit Memorial Hospital (Beloit)
• SSM Health Monroe Hospital (Monroe)
• ProHealth Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital (Oconomowoc)
• Howard Young Medical Center (Woodruff)
• Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center (La Crosse)
• Aurora St Luke's Medical Center of Aurora Health Care Metro, Inc (Milwaukee)
• Aurora Medical Center Bay Area (Marinette)
• Aurora Medical Center of Kenosha (Kenosha)
• Ascension St. Francis Hospital (Milwaukee)
• Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital - Franklin Campus (Franklin)
• Ascension Columbia St Mary's Hospital Milwaukee (Milwaukee)
• Ascension All Saints Hospital (Racine)
• Aurora Medical Center of Oshkosh (Oshkosh)

Grade C

• Marshfield Medical Center - Weston (Weston)
• Marshfield Medical Center Beaver Dam (Beaver Dam)
• Mile Bluff Medical Center (Mauston)
• ProHealth Waukesha Memorial Hospital (Waukesha)
• SSM Health St. Agnes Hospital - Fond du Lac (Fond du Lac)
• SSM Health St. Clare Hospital - Baraboo (Baraboo)
• ThedaCare Regional Medical Center - Neenah (Neenah)
• SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital - Madison (Madison)
• UnityPoint Health - Meriter (Madison)
• UW Health East Madison Hospital (Madison)
• UW Health University Hospital (Madison)
• Marshfield Medical Center - Rice Lake (Rice Lake)
• SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital - Janesville (Janesville)
• Marshfield Medical Center - Minocqua (Minocqua)
• Aspirus Riverview Hospital (Wisconsin Rapids)
• Holy Family Memorial Medical Center (Manitowoc)
• Ascension Columbia St Mary's Hospital Ozaukee (Mequon)
• Ascension NE Wisconsin - Mercy Campus (Oshkosh)
• HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital (Sheboygan)
• Aspirus Wausau Hospital (Wausau)
• Aurora Medical Center - Mount Pleasant (Mount Pleasant)
• Aspirus Rhinelander Hospital (Rhinelander)
• Aurora St. Luke's South Shore of Aurora Health Care Metro (Cudahy)
• Froedtert Hospital (Milwaukee)
• Froedtert Menomonee Falls Hospital (Menomonee Falls)
• Froedtert Pleasant Prairie Hospital (Pleasant Prairie)
• Froedtert West Bend Hospital (West Bend)
• Aurora Sinai Medical Center (Milwaukee)

Grade D

• Mercyhealth Hospital and Trauma Center - Janesville (Janesville)
• Aspirus Divine Savior Hospital (Portage)
• Aspirus Stevens Point Hospital (Stevens Point)
• Fort Memorial Hospital (Fort Atkinson)
• HSHS St Vincent Hospital (Green Bay)
• HSHS St. Mary's Hospital Medical Center (Green Bay)
• Marshfield Medical Center - Eau Claire (Eau Claire)
• Marshfield Medical Center - Marshfield (Marshfield)
• ThedaCare Regional Medical Center - Appleton (Appleton)

You can see the full rankings here.

Across the nation, 11 hospitals have earned "A" grades on all 27 evaluation rounds over the 13 years of the report card.

They include: Mayo Clinic-Phoenix in Arizona; French Hospital Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center in California; Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital, Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois; Saint Anne’s Hospital (Massachusetts); Inova Loudoun Hospital, Sentara CarePlex Hospital and Sentara Leigh Hospital in Virginia; and Virginia Mason Medical Center in Washington.

Leah Binder, the president and chief executive of The Leapfrog Group, said “A” grades should be a source of pride for hospitals, but she warned them not to “rest on that laurel.”

“Patient safety is a relentless, never-ending quest to put patients first,” she said in a news release. “That’s why Leapfrog is highlighting the hospitals across the U.S. that have earned Straight A’s for over two years. Sustaining an A over multiple years reflects a deep-rooted commitment to patient safety.”

The top five states with the highest share of Straight A hospitals since spring 2023 are Utah (29 percent), Connecticut (29 percent), New Jersey (27 percent), Rhode Island (22 percent) and Virginia (20 percent).

States with no Straight A hospitals for consistent performance over the past five grading cycles are Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.

The states with the highest percentage of A Grades for spring 2025 are Utah, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, South Carolina and Virginia.