Leapfrog Group releases Spring 2026 hospital safety grades

The Leapfrog Group’s new report card shows hospitals are faring better when it comes to patient safety.

The organization released its Spring 2026 Hospital Safety Grades Wednesday morning. The Leapfrog Group assigns letter grades to hospitals based on how they perform in various patient safety metrics. Hospitals and health systems earning high marks often tout their grades to the public to demonstrate their quality.

Overall, the organization finds hospitals have made strides in reducing infections in their facilities, and they’ve also fared better in helping patients avoid injuries in falls or medication errors.

Katie Stewart, director of health care ratings for The Leapfrog Group, tells Chief Healthcare Executive® that the latest findings show progres in protecting patients.

“t's great to see again, the encouraging trends in terms of infections and medication safety and patient experience,” Stewart says. “You know, it really does show that the commitment made by leadership is reall working, and we continue to see that when it comes to the safety grades.”

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The Leapfrog Group says that hospitals have made significant improvements in the past few years. In the fall 2022 safety grades, the group found some infections were at their highest level since 2016, and other studies found declines in patient safety, partly due to the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the fall of 2022, hospitals have reduced central line-associated bloodstream infections by 50%, and they’ve also reduced catheter-associated urinary tract infections by 45%, according to the Leapfrog Group. In addition, MRSA infections dropped by 42%, and Clostridium difficile (C.diff) infections fell by 30%.

“That's really promising,” Stewart says. “These are infections that could impact …. any patient that stays in the hospital, whether they have a central line or a catheter.”

“So it's really promising to see that these healthcare associated infections are decreasing, and really quite dramatically in not too long a period,” she says.

Hospital leadership has played a critical role in driving changes to improve safety, Stewart says. She stresses that it must be a priority at the top level of the organization.

“We saw that there was kind of this re-commitment to reducing infections, and you can see how that has really had an impact,” Stewart says. “When we look at hospitals that are doing well, it really starts with the C-suite. And so that commitment to reducing infections is certainly something that needs to come from the C-suite and trickle down.”

The group was founded by large employers and other healthcare purchasers.

The group’s report cards show some states are also seeing more success in patient safety metrics. The report cards track the percentage of A-rated hospitals in each state.

The states with the highest percentage of hospitals earning an A are Connecticut, Virginia, South Carolina, Utah, Montana, New Jersey, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina and California.

It marks the first time Montana placed in the top five among A-rated hospitals, coming in fifth. Maryland entered the top 10 states with A-rated hospitals for the first time, placing eighth. Maryland had been among the lower performing states in previous years. Florida jumped from 15th to 7th in the ranking of states with A-rated hospitals.

The Leapfrog Group’s new report card offers grades for 2,400 hospitals, using data from the Centers for MedicareLet & Medicaid Services and a survey of hospital systems. The group issues safety grades twice a year, in the spring and fall.

It’s also the first set of Leapfrog Group safety grades since a federal court issued a ruling in a suit filed by five Florida hospitals owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp. A federal judge in Florida ruled in favor of the hospitals, who argued the methodology is unfair and that they unfairly received failing grades because they didn’t participate in Leapfrog’s survey. The judge ordered the Leapfrog group to remove the grades.

The Leapfrog Group is appealing the ruling. The group has also changed its methodology and says that it no longer assigns grades to hospitals that aren’t participating in the survey, so 450 hospitals have no grade assigned.

Stewart pointed to the fact that many hospitals are participating in the survey.

“We want to recognize those that are transparent,” Stewart says. “That is really a first step. And you know, Leapfrog will never stop fighting for patients and their safety. We feel and know that all people have a right to know how their hospitals are performing, and that's really our mission.”

She also points out that some hospitals receiving “A” grades are community hospitals with modest resources.

“We have safety net hospitals, as we do every round earning A's,” Stewart says. “So that's really great to see. You know, all patients, regardless of the type of hospital they're visiting, really deserve protection from avoidable harms and errors, and it doesn't require a lot of money. It really needs strong leadership commitment to make that happen.”