The University of Chicago Medicine has earned its 15th “A” grade in hospital safety from the Leapfrog Group — making UCM one of just 41 health care providers across the country to have received consecutive top marks from the industry watchdog group and the only one in Chicago to have earned this distinction.
The pool of hospitals with continuous A’s shrank by one in this spring’s results. In fall 2018, 42 institutions earned the top score in all 15 survey periods. In spring 2018, 49 had such a record.
In the current grading cycle, more than 2,600 hospitals were surveyed based on 28 publicly available safety metrics, which are selected and reviewed by a panel of experts. Data range from infection rates, surgical complications and medical errors to safety problems and staffing. Leapfrog assigns a letter grade to hospitals based on their performance in preventing medical errors, infections and other harms. The results may be viewed on Leapfrog’s website