Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade
A letter grade (A-F) assigned twice yearly to U.S. hospitals by The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by large employers, based on 30+ patient safety measures.
Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is a term from U.S. hospital cost and quality reporting — the field that produces the CMS Hospital Compare program, the Medicare Inpatient Payment files, and the patient-facing tools built on top of them. The definition below covers what the term means in CMS files, what it does not mean, and how it interacts with the other measures CMS publishes. On the LakeQuality value rubric, Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is one of the inputs (directly or indirectly) to the combined cost-and-quality grade. Understanding how the term is computed at CMS — what counts and what does not — is part of reading hospital pages defensibly.
Each hospital page on LakeQuality surfaces the specific Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade value for that facility (when CMS reports one), so the general definition here translates into a concrete data point on the per-hospital pages you actually use.
How It Works
The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the leading independent hospital safety report card, released every spring and fall by The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded in 2000 by large employers and purchasers. The grade focuses exclusively on preventable patient harm (medical errors, accidents, injuries, infections) and deliberately excludes mortality and readmission measures used in the CMS star rating. Approximately 3,000 general acute-care hospitals receive grades each cycle, assembled from 30+ measures grouped into two categories weighted 50/50: process/structural measures (ICU staffing by intensivists, computerized physician order entry, hand hygiene, safe medication administration) and outcome measures (healthcare-associated infections CLABSI/CAUTI/C.diff/MRSA/SSI, serious patient safety events, hospital-acquired falls and trauma, dangerous blood clots, pressure ulcers). Data comes from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey (voluntary but completed by about 2,200 hospitals), CMS Hospital Compare feeds, and American Hospital Association supplemental data. Distribution in the Fall 2024 release: about 30% of graded hospitals earned an A, 24% a B, 37% a C, 7% a D, and 1% an F. California, Virginia, Utah, and New Jersey consistently have the highest A percentages; some Southern states average lower. Individual hospital grades can move substantially between cycles because survey data changes and CMS measures update. Large employer coalitions (including GE, GM, and many Fortune 500 firms) use Leapfrog grades to steer employees through benefit design incentives, and some state Medicaid agencies reference Leapfrog in pay-for-performance programs. Hospitals with persistent D or F grades face reputational harm and often trigger boards to demand safety overhauls.
Related Terms
- CMS Star Rating (Hospital Overall Rating), A 1-to-5 star rating assigned by CMS to each hospital based on 46+ quality measures, covering mortality, safety, readmissions, patient experience, and timely care.
- Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program, A CMS program that reduces Medicare payments by 1% for the quartile of hospitals with the highest rates of hospital-acquired conditions, including infections and preventable injuries.
- Mortality Rate (Hospital), The rate of patient deaths within 30 days of hospital admission for specific conditions, risk-adjusted to account for differences in patient severity.
- Readmission Rate, The percentage of patients who return to the hospital within 30 days of discharge for the same or related condition, a key quality metric tracked by CMS.
- HCAHPS Survey, The standardized national patient satisfaction survey (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) administered to a random sample of discharged hospital patients, producing publicly reported patient experience scores.
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About This Definition
This definition is part of the HospitalCostData Hospital Pricing Glossary, 47 terms explaining hospital costs, quality ratings, and healthcare billing. Written for patients, journalists, researchers, and healthcare professionals.