8 Wisconsin Hospitals Earn A’s, While 4 Receive D’s in New Safety Report 

The latest grades leave some health care centers celebrating and others surprised.

How safe is your hospital? A new report from the nonprofit watchdog Leapfrog Group scored 3,000 US Hospitals on how well they protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries, and infections. Staffing, error prevention strategies, and employee communication were also taken into consideration.

Of the 67 Wisconsin hospitals that were graded, 8 earned A’s, 13 received B’s, 42 were given C’s, and 4 received D’s.

Bellin Memorial (Green Bay), HSHS Sacred Heart (Eau Claire), HSHS St. Joseph’s (Chippewa Falls), HSHS St. Mary’s (Green Bay), Mayo Clinic (Eau Claire), Mayo Clinic (La Crosse), Sauk Prairie (Prairie Du Sac), and ThedaCare Regional (Appleton) were Wisconsin’s highest scoring hospitals.

Aspirus Rhinelander (Rhinelander), Aurora Sinai (Milwaukee), Aurora St. Luke’s (Milwaukee), and Aurora St. Luke’s South Shore (Milwaukee) all received D’s– the lowest grade among Wisconsin hospitals, although not the lowest possible. In neighboring Illinois, Chicago’s South Shore Hospital was given an “F”, with its lowest marks in several infection categories, hospital falls, and error prevention.

Click here for more on the methodology behind these grades.

Some of Wisconsin’s most prominent and routinely-high ranking hospitals were among the “C” ratings on the list, including three SSM Health locations in Baraboo, Janesville, and Madison, as well as Madison’s UW Health University Hospital.

Leapfrog says its hospital rating system is the only one in the country focusing solely on a hospital’s ability to protect patients from preventable errors.

Click here to find out how your local hospital scored.

NOTE: These grades are just one way to rate Wisconsin hospitals. Click here for US News & World Report’s Best Hospitals of 2022 list.