DURHAM, N.C. -- For the fifth consecutive year, Duke University Hospital, Duke Regional Hospital and Duke Raleigh Hospital have earned top scores for hospital safety from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit organization made up of employers and other large purchasers of health benefits.

The “A” scores are part of the group’s Hospital Safety Grade -- a letter grade issued to hospitals every six months. The three hospitals in the Duke University Health System have all earned and maintained the highest score since fall 2012.

The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Score grades hospitals on a scale of “A” to “F” based 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 inform patients about facilities when faced with hospitalization.

To produce a single score representing a hospital’s safety performance, The Leapfrog Group’s rating system uses 30 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 & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the American Hospital Association’s annual survey.

More than 2,600 U.S. hospitals were assigned scores for the spring 2017 safety grades, with 823 receiving an “A” grade. Comparisons of hospital scores locally and nationally are available at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.