Patch: 40 Virginia Hospitals Get 'A' Rating On New Safety Grades

Hospitals in Virginia received the latest safety grades from Leapfrog Group, and only one received a D grade.

By Emily Leayman

VIRGINIA — Forty hospitals in Virginia were given top safety grades in The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2024 Hospital Safety Grades released Wednesday.

The independent, nonprofit watchdog group assigned safety grades, ranging from “A” to “F,” for 3,000 general hospitals on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents and infections.

The Leapfrog Group, which grades hospitals twice a year, also ranked the 10 states with the highest number of “A” hospitals. Utah tops the list, followed by Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Alaska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina and Maine, respectively.

In Virginia, hospitals receiving the top letter grade were:

• Winchester Medical Center, Winchester: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Parham Doctors' Hospital, Richmond: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• UVA Health Culpeper Medical Center, Culpeper: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• TriCities Hospital, Hopewell: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Fauquier Hospital, Warrenton: A score, up from C in fall 2023
• Warren Memorial Hospital, Front Royal: score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital, Onancock: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Carilion New River Valley Medical Center, Christiansburg: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Inova Loudoun Hospital, Leesburg: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• UVA Prince William Medical Center, Manassas: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Virginia Hospital Center--Arlington Health System, Arlington: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Riverside Regional Medical Center, Newport News: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital, Virginia Beach: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Clinch Valley Medical Center, Richlands: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Inova Fairfax Hospital, Falls Church: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center, Williamsburg: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center, Mechanicsville: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Danville Regional Medical Center, Danville: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• VCU Health Tappahannock Hospital, Tappahannock: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Centra Bedford Memorial Hospital, Bedford: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Centra Southside Community Hospital, Farmville: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Southampton Memorial Hospital, Franklin: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Sentara CarePlex Hospital, Hampton: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, Fairfax: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Reston Hospital Center, Reston: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, Blacksburg: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Twin County Regional Healthcare, Galax: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• LewisGale Hospital - Pulaski, Pulaski: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Henrico Doctors' Hospital, Richmond: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sentara Princess Anne Hospital: Virginia Beach: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Inova Mount Vernon Hospital, Alexandria: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• LewisGale Hospital Alleghany, Low Moor: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Buchanan General Hospital, Grundy: A score, up from B in fall 2023
• Riverside Walter Reed Hospital, Gloucester: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center, Midlothian: A score, up from C in fall 2023
• Riverside Doctors' Hospital Williamsburg, Williamsburg: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• UVA Haymarket Medical Center, Haymarket: A score, unchanged from fall 2023
• StoneSprings Hospital Center, Dulles: A score, unchanged from fall 2023

Other scores were:

• Sentara RMH Medical Center, Harrisonburg: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Norfolk: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital, South Boston: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center, Portsmouth: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Augusta Health, Fisherville: B score, down from A in fall 2023
• Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital, Lynchburg: C score, down from B in fall 2023
• Mary Washington Hospital, Fredericksburg: D score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Roanoke: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Johnston-Willis Hospital, Richmond: B score, down from A in fall 2023
• Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, Fredericksburg: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• VCU Medical Center Main Hospital, Richmond: C score, changed from no grade in fall 2023
• Inova Alexandria Hospital, Alexandria: B score, down from A in fall 2023
• Mary Immaculate Hospital, Newport News: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sentara Obici Hospital, Suffolk: B score, down from A in fall 2023
• LewisGale Medical Center, Salem: B score, down from A in fall 2023
• Johnston Memorial Hospital, Abingdon: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital of Richmond, Richmond: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Bon Secours Southside Regional Medical Center, Petersburg: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Retreat Doctors' Hospital, Richmond: B score, down from A in fall 2023
• Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Sovah Health Martinsville, Martinsville: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital, Rocky Mount: B score, change from unchanged from fall 2023
• Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Portsmouth: B score, changed from no grade in fall 2023
• Centra Lynchburg General Hospital, Lynchburg: C score, down from B in fall 2023
• VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital, South Hill: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Wythe County Community Hospital, Wytheville: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Chippenham Hospital, Richmond: B score, down from A in fall 2023
• Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, Woodbridge: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Chesapeake Regional Medical Center, Chesapeake: C score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Stafford Hospital, Stafford: B score, unchanged from fall 2023
• Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center (formerly Fort Belvoir Community Hospital), Fort Belvoir: B score, change from no score in fall 2023)

Overall, Virginia had:

• 18 hospitals that earned “B” grades;
• 12 hospitals that earned “C” grades;
• 1 hospitals that earned “D” grades; and
• 0 hospitals that earned “F” grades.

For the first time this spring, the watchdog ranked the top 25 metropolitan statistical reporting areas according to the number of “A” hospitals. The top three metro areas are Allentown, Pennsylvania; Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The Hampton Roads and Richmond regions ranked among the top 25, tied for 10th and 25th, respectively. Nationwide, hospitals showed improvements over their fall 2023 performance in both reducing hospital-acquired infections and improving patient experiences, the report said. Hospital-acquired infections and preventable errors kill about 250,000 people a year in the United States, making patient safety problems the nation’s third-leading cause of death, according to a summary of peer-reviewed research published in the global health care journal BMJ.

Hospital-acquired infections soared to levels not seen since 2016 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that spike, 92 percent of hospitals showed improved performance on at least one of three dangerous infections, the report said. Central line-associated bloodstream infections were down by 34 percent, and both catheter-associated urinary tract infections and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections decreased by 30 percent.

Despite the improvements, “patient safety remains a crisis-level hazard in health care,” Leapfrog Group president and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release. “Some hospitals are much better than others at protecting patients from harm, and that’s why we make the Hospital Safety Grade available to the public and why we encourage all hospitals to focus more attention on safety,” Binder said.

Patient experiences have worsened since the pandemic, and while the spring report shows improvement, patients don’t report the same level of confidence they had before the pandemic, according to the report.

Patient experience is measured through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to publicly report how hospital patients measure the care they received.

The five measures are nurse communication, doctor communication, hospital staff responsiveness, communication about medicines and discharge information.

“Patient experience is very difficult to influence without delivering better care, so these findings are encouraging,” Binder said. “We were also pleased to see the decrease in preventable infections, which cause terrible suffering and sometimes death. When we look at these positive trends, we see lives saved — and that is gratifying.”