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DURHAM, N.C. – Duke University Hospital, Duke Regional Hospital and Duke Raleigh Hospital were awarded “A” scores for hospital safety from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits.

The “A” scores are part of the latest update to the nonprofit’s Hospital Safety Score, which issues letter grades “A” through “F” to hospitals every six months. The three hospitals in Duke University Health System have all earned and maintained the highest grade since fall 2012.

The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Score grades hospitals on their overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable medical errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of patient safety experts and is designed to provide information to help guide patients when faced with a hospitalization.

To produce a single score representing a hospital’s safety performance, The Leapfrog Group’s rating system uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data, including data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the American Hospital Association’s annual survey.

More than 2,500 U.S. hospitals were assigned scores in spring 2014, with approximately 32 percent receiving an “A” grade. Comparisons of hospital scores locally and nationally are available at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.

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