Most Kentucky hospitals in national patient-safety ratings got ‘C’ grades again; state ranks 36th in share of hospitals with ‘A’ ratings
By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News
Most of the Kentucky hospitals graded on a nonprofit group’s twice-a-year report card for patient safety got a C again in the latest report.
The Leapfrog Group, based in Washington, D.C., rates nearly 3,000 general acute-care hospitals based on how well they protect patients. Most of Kentucky’s 126 hospitals are relatively small, so they are not rated by Leapfrog; it rated 60 Kentucky hospitals.
The group does not grade small hospitals with “critical access” status because they don’t have to report quality measures to the federal government, nor does it grade specialty hospitals, government hospitals, or hospitals that don’t have enough publicly reported data.
In its latest report, released May 1, Leapfrog gave “A” ratings to 14 Kentucky hospitals; Kentucky’s percentage of A grades, 23.3%, ranked 36th among states, tying with Kansas for that ranking. That was a big drop from the last report, when it ranked 22nd. Leapfrog gave Bs to 19 Kentucky hospitals, Cs to 23 and Ds to four.
The grades are based on up to 30 measures that indicate how well hospitals protect patients from preventable errors, injuries, accidents and infections.
The Leapfrog site offers details on the measures for each hospital under the headings titled Infections, Problems with Surgery, Practices to Prevent Errors, Safety Problems, and Doctors, Nurses and Hospital Staff.
The report uses data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Leapfrog’s own survey and other supplemental data sources.
Top Scores
Hospitals getting As were Baptist Health Deaconess Madisonville, Baptist Health Richmond, Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Clark Regional Medical Center in Winchester, Harrison Memorial Hospital in Cynthiana, Meadowview Regional Medical Center in Maysville, Medical Center at Bowling Green, Spring View Hospital in Lebanon, St. Elizabeth Healthcare- Ft. Thomas, St. Elizabeth Healthcare-Edgewood, St. Elizabeth Healthcare-Florence, T.J. Samson Community Hospital in Glasgow, Three Rivers Medical Center in Louisa and U of L Health Shelbyville Hospital.
The spring 2025 report also recognized hospitals that had received an A grade for five grading rounds or more. In Kentucky, the only hospital to qualify was the Medical Center at Bowling Green.
That said, three Kentucky hospitals have received four grading rounds of As, including Meadowview Regional Medical Center, St. Elizabeth Healthcare-Edgewood and T.J. Sampson Community Hospital.
Also of note, Baptist Health Deaconess Madisonville got an A on the spring report card, after years of getting Bs and Cs since its last A in the fall of 2020.
Shifts up and down
Four Kentucky hospitals moved down to a B after getting an A on the last report, including Baptist Health Hardin, Deaconess Henderson Hospital, Owensboro Health Muhlenberg Community Hospital and Saint Joseph London.
UK HealthCare’s Good Samaritan Hospital was the only hospital to move up to a B after getting a C on the last report.
Other hospitals with B grades are Baptist Health Corbin, Baptist Health La Grange, Baptist Health Lexington, Frankfort Regional Medical Center, Georgetown Community Hospital, Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center, Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital in Somerset, Louisville’s Norton Audubon Hospital, Norton Brownsboro Hospital, Norton Hospital, Norton Women’s & Children’s Hospital, St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital in Bowling Green and University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital.
AdventHealth in Manchester was the only Kentucky hospital to move to a C grade after receiving an A in the last report, and on the other end of the spectrum, Highlands ARH Regional Medical Center in Prestonsburg was the only hospital to move out of the D category, up to an A.
Three Kentucky hospitals moved down from a B to a C: Baptist Health Paducah, Jackson Purchase Medical Center in Mayfield and Saint Joseph East in Lexington.
The remaining 18 hospitals with a C all got Cs on the last report card, too.
Mercy Health Lourdes in Paducah, Pikeville Medical Center and Taylor Regional Hospital in Campbellsville all moved down from a C to a D, and Murray-Calloway County Hospital maintained its D rating for the eighth consecutive grading period.
No Kentucky hospitals got an F on this report.
Click here for a list of frequently asked questions about the survey. Click here to see if your hospital was graded.
Ongoing lawsuit
Five low-scoring Tenet Healthcare hospitals in the Palm Beach area of Florida have sued Leapfrog to try to suppress publication of their grades, arguing that “Leapfrog fails to fairly evaluate hospitals that do not complete its hospital survey, and rather than indicating that there is insufficient data to issue a grade to non-participating hospitals, it instead assigns a score equivalent to the “Worst Hospital’s Score” on several measures. This flawed methodology does not accurately reflect hospitals’ performance or patient outcomes,” according to a news release.
Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, says CMS data supports their findings.
“Using data from CMS, the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid, the Hospital Safety Grades reveal many concerns about the safety of patients at these hospitals,” she says in a prepared statement. In a separate news release, Leapfrog says, “Leapfrog will win in court as we always do.”