Hospital Safety Grades 2021: How Lake Norman Hospitals Fared

HUNTERSVILLE, NC — Several North Carolina hospitals received top safety marks while others didn’t quite measure up in The Leapfrog Group’s annual spring safety grades released Thursday.

The nonprofit health care watchdog group grades hospitals twice a year, assigning letter grades from “A” to “F” based on each hospital's ability to protect patients from preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections.

Here's how hospitals in the Lake Norman region fared:

• Novant Health Huntersville Medical Center, Huntersville — B
• Atrium Health Cabarrus, Concord — B
• Atrium Health University City, Charlotte — A
• Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center, Charlotte — A
• Carolinas Medical Center - Mercy, Charlotte — B
• Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte — A
• Lake Norman Regional Medical Center, Mooresville — B
• Davis Regional Medical Center, Statesville — C
• Iredell Memorial Hospital, Statesville — C

“We are continuously working on improvements throughout our organization, including at Iredell Memorial Hospital," John Green, president & CEO of Iredell Health System, told Patch in a statement. "The dramatic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the implementation of some of our previous plans, but we are actively focused on those plans moving forward and look forward to seeing the results of those efforts in the future.”

More than 2,700 general, acute-care U.S. hospitals were assessed for Leapfrog’s Spring Safety Grades. Among those hospitals, 27 have achieved 19 consecutive “A” grades in every biannual grading cycle since Leapfrog launched the safety grades in spring 2012.

In North Carolina:

• 39 hospitals received an A grade.
• 24 hospitals received a B grade.
• 18 hospitals received a C grade.
• 2 hospitals received a D grade.

It’s worth noting the hospitals were graded during a time of extraordinary pressure on the health care system due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This pandemic emphasized how much we rely on America’s health care workforce,” Leapfrog Group President and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release. “Our straight ‘A’ hospitals remind us how preparedness protected their patients as well as their workforce and created a high level of organizational resilience.”

Across all states, highlights of findings from the spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade include:

• Thirty-three percent of hospitals received an "A," 24 percent received a "B," 35 percent received a "C," 7 percent received a "D," and less than 1 percent received an "F."
• Five states with the highest percentages of "A" hospitals are Massachusetts, Idaho, Maine, Virginia, and North Carolina.
• There were no "A" hospitals in South Dakota or North Dakota.

To determine each state’s grade, Leapfrog used up to 28 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and information from other supplemental data sources. When averaged, performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

The goal of the Hospital Safety Grade is to reduce deaths caused by hospital errors and injuries.

Leapfrog estimates that if the risk at all hospitals was equivalent to what it is at "A" hospitals, 50,000 lives at other facilities would have been saved. Overall, the researchers estimate that 160,000 lives are lost every year due to avoidable medical errors. That figure is down from 2016, when the Leapfrog Group estimated there were 205,000 avoidable deaths.

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is peer-reviewed by a panel of national experts, and the Leapfrog Group receives guidance from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.

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