St. Mary Medical Center Gets B Grade For Patient Safety

You may just want to check this out before you head out to the hospital in Bucks County. The nonprofit group Leapfrog this week released its hospital safety grades, and six Bucks County hospitals have been analyzed.

Four of them received an A. One received a B. Just one received a C. Thankfully, none received a D or F.

The Leapfrog group says the goal of the rankings is to determine a patient's risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital.

Leapfrog says 27 evidence-based measures of patient safety are used to calculate the grades. Using that information, a numerical score is created and then converted into one of five letter grades. The nonprofit says its Hospital Safety Grade methodology has been peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

The organization releases its grades twice a year — in the spring and the fall.

Here's a look at the newly-released grades for the local hospitals, and how they compare to recent grades by the same organization:

A

Aria Health - Bucks County Division, Langhorne

Aria Health has been consistently improving its safety grade. This is its first A grade, but in the spring of 2016, it received a B. That's up from a C last fall.

Doylestown Hospital, Doylestown

This is the third A in a row for Doylestown Hospital. That's up from a C grade in the spring of 2016.

Grand View Health, Sellersville

Grand View has received five straight A grades from Leapfrog. Ever since spring of 2015, when the hospital got a B, it has consistently received the top grade.

St. Luke's Quakertown Hospital, Quakertown

St. Luke's A grade is a significant improvement over its score from the spring, when Leapfrog deemed it a C. In grades from a year ago, it received a B. This is St. Luke's first A grade since 2014.

B

St. Mary Medical Center, Langhorne

St. Mary's B is a vast improvement from its D grade this spring. It also received a D last fall. Both grades in 2015 were Cs.

C

Lower Bucks Hospital, Bristol

Lower Bucks Hospital has been consistently given a C grade by Leapfrog. In both spring and fall of 2016, the Bristol hospital got a C. In the Spring of 2014 it got a D grade.

Patch file photo