By HFT Staff

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit focused on patient safety, released its Spring 2025 Hospital Safety Grade. The biannual Safety Grade is an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D” or “F” assigned to all general hospitals in the United States based on their ability to protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections. These largely preventable problems harm one in four hospital inpatients and cause as many as 250,000 deaths each year.      

For the first time, Leapfrog is spotlighting 346 hospitals nationwide that not only achieved an “A” for spring 2025 but have sustained the grade for five or more grading rounds, designating them “Straight A” hospitals. 

“All hospitals should be proud to earn an ‘A,’ but they should not rest on that laurel. Patient safety is a relentless, never-ending quest to put patients first,” says Leah Binder, president and CEO, The Leapfrog Group. “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.”  

Among the Straight A hospitals Leapfrog is highlighting are an elite group of 11 hospitals that earned A’s for all 27 grading rounds —13 years. The all-time Straight A hospitals are Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital (Illinois), French Hospital Medical Center (California), Inova Loudoun Hospital (Virginia), Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center (California), Mayo Clinic-Phoenix (Arizona), Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital (Illinois), Saint Anne's Hospital (Massachusetts), Sentara CarePlex Hospital (Virginia), Sentara Leigh Hospital (Virginia), University of Chicago Medical Center (Illinois) and Virginia Mason Medical Center (Washington).   

For the first time, Leapfrog is sharing state-by-state data on the percentage of hospitals that have earned Straight A’s for two years or more. Key trends include:   

• 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 are Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.   

Every grading round, Leapfrog ranks states based on the percentage of hospitals that earned an A in the current Safety Grade. Findings from the spring 2025 state rankings include:  

• States with the highest percentage of A Grades for spring 2025 are Utah, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, South Carolina and Virginia.   
• Utah ranks No. 1 for the fourth consecutive Safety Grade round, and ties for No. 1 among states with the highest percentage of Straight A hospitals.  
• Washington, D.C. ranks No. 11 for percentage of A hospitals for spring 2025, marking a significant improvement after years of ranking lowest among states.  
• There are no A hospitals in Iowa, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.