These Are WI’s Safest Hospitals, New Ranking Says

MILWAUKEE, WI — A new hospital safety report released Thursday shows that 16 hospitals in Wisconsin earned “A” grades for their ability to protect patients from often preventable harm.

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.

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.

Wisconsin — Fall 2025 A Hospitals

• Ascension NE Wisconsin – St Elizabeth Campus
• Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital – St. Joseph Campus
• Aurora BayCare Medical Center
• Aurora Lakeland Medical Center
• Aurora Medical Center Bay Area
• Aurora Medical Center Burlington
• Aurora Medical Center Grafton
• Aurora Medical Center Manitowoc County
• Aurora Medical Center of Kenosha
• Aurora Medical Center of Oshkosh
• Aurora Medical Center of Washington County
• Aurora Medical Center Sheboygan County
• Aurora Medical Center Summit
• Mayo Clinic Health System–Eau Claire
• Mayo Clinic Health System–La Crosse
• Watertown Regional Medical Center

Additionally, eight hospitals in Wisconsin earned B grades, 31 earned C grades, and 9 earned D grades. The report showed that no Wisconsin hospitals received failing F grades.

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.

Four states — Iowa, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming — have no A hospitals.