St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital was awarded an ‘A’ in the fall 2020 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction recognizing Sacred Heart’s achievements  protecting patients from harm and providing safer health care.

 The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization committed to health care quality and safety. The Safety Grade assigns an ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘F’ grade to all general hospitals across the country and is updated every six months. It is based on a hospital’s performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care.

“I am tremendously proud of our colleagues and medical staff here at Sacred Heart for achieving this level of patient safety. It is truly exceptional,” said Sacred Heart President Jeff English. “It takes tremendous commitment and attention to detail to achieve this recognition. The fact that we have achieved it during the COVID-19 pandemic says even more about our outstanding staff. The Leapfrog ‘A’ award is a great recognition of all they are doing to ensure quality and safety for our patients.”

“We are extremely grateful to hospital leadership and health care workers who have remained steadfast in prioritizing patient safety as our nation battles COVID-19,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “This ‘A’ is a testament to the care and commitment of those who work for Sacred Heart Hospital. With the current pandemic exposing existing flaws within the U.S. health care system, we appreciate you putting patient safety first. Lives depend on it.” 

St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens achieved a ‘B’ in the fall safety grades. St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital in Greensboro is a critical access hospital and is not included in Leapfrog’s review.

Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.