A Raleigh hospital is rated tops in patient safety. Here’s how others locally compare.
A Raleigh hospital has again been named one of the best in the nation by a group that studies patient safety and care.
The Leapfrog Group’s latest report, released Wednesday and searchable by the public online, gave UNC Health Rex straight A’s after evaluating the hospital’s performance on more than two dozen measures in five categories of safety and care. Leapfrog issues the reports twice a year for nearly 3,000 general hospitals in the U.S., based on rates of preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections, as well as the systems hospitals use to prevent those.
Leapfrog said Rex is one of only 15 hospitals nationwide — and the only one of 90 hospitals in North Carolina — to get straight A’s every year since the group began its evaluations in 2012. Last year, it noted 18 straight-A hospitals across the country.
“Across UNC Health, we focus on providing safe and excellent care to all patients,” Dr. Wesley Burks, CEO of UNC Health, said in a news release from the hospital after the ratings were announced. “In addition, we look at measurements like Leapfrog to help us constantly improve.”
Leah Binder, president and CEO of the non-profit Leapfrog Group, said, “Everyone who works at UNC Health should be proud of these ‘A’ Hospital Safety Grades. It takes complete dedication of at every level, and an ironclad commitment to putting patients first. I thank UNC Health, its leadership, clinicians, staff, and volunteers for caring so deeply for its patients and their safety.”
How did other area hospitals rate?
The Leapfrog Group gave these overall grades for other area hospitals:
A grades:
WakeMed Raleigh Campus
Duke Raleigh Hospital
WakeMed Cary Hospital
Rex Holly Springs Hospital
Duke University Hospital
Duke Regional Hospital
Person Memorial Hospital, Roxboro
B grades:
WakeMed North Hospital
UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill
Johnston Health Clayton
Johnston Health in Smithfield
Central Harnett Hospital, Lillington
Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital, Dunn
Maria Parham Health, Henderson
C grade
Central Carolina Hospital, Sanford
D grade
Granville Medical Center, Oxford
What trends appeared in the ratings?
In general, The Leapfrog Group found, hospital patient experience has declined since the pandemic and although there was some improvement during the last half of 2023 — the period measured in the most recent report — safety and patient care have not returned to pre-pandemic quality.
The report found notable improvements in the rates of certain kinds of infections, including central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA.
“While today’s results are promising, patient safety remains a crisis-level hazard in health care,” Binder said on the organization’s website. “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.”
