Eight area hospitals earn top rating for patient safety

Four WellSpan hospitals, three UPMC hospitals and Lancaster General Hospital (LGH) all earned top ratings by Leapfrog. 

Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade recognizes hospitals’ achievements protecting patients from harm and providing safer health care twice a year. 

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national watchdog organization of employers and other purchasers focused on health care safety, assigns an ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘F’ grade to all general hospitals across the country based on their performance in over 30 national performance measures reflecting errors, accidents, injuries and infections, as well as systems hospitals have in place to prevent harm to patients in their care. 

WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital, WellSpan Gettysburg Hospital, WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital, WellSpan Waynesboro Hospital, UPMC Community Osteopathic Hospital in Harrisburg, UPMC Harrisburg, UPMC Memorial in York, and LGH all received the “A” safety grades. 

“To be recognized as an ‘A’ hospital demonstrates our ability to deliver highly reliable, sustainable and safe health care at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital,” said John J. Herman, CEO at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health. “I am proud of our staff who continuously work to deliver care for our patients, with a dedication to the highest quality care possible. This national recognition highlights our commitment to provide the high-quality care our patients and our community expect and deserve.” 

Dr. Michael Seim, senior vice president and chief quality officer at WellSpan Health, said, “The safety of our patients is always the top priority of every single member of the WellSpan Health team, and these safety grades are proof of that.” 

Tami Minnier, UPMC’s chief quality and operational excellence officer, said, “These top marks from The Leapfrog Group demonstrate the exceptional levels of safe care our patients have come to expect from UPMC and our dedicated nurses, physicians and other staff members. We continually look for new and better ways to drive error rates to zero so that all patients receive the care that they deserve.”  

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospital prevention of medical errors and harm to patients. The grading system is peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public. Grades are updated twice annually, in the fall and spring. 

“This new update of Hospital Safety Grades shows that, at the national level, we saw deterioration in patient safety with the pandemic,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “But these four WellSpan Health hospitals received an ‘A’ despite those challenges. I congratulate all the leaders, staff, volunteers and clinicians who together made that possible.”