Valley Medical Center this month received a Grade of “A” for hospital safety by The Leapfrog Group, a national, independent nonprofit organization which evaluates and scores 2,500 hospitals across the country. Leapfrog is the nation’s premier advocate of transparency to promote giant leaps forward in quality and patient safety in healthcare.

Valley is one of only 11 hospitals in the state with an A grade (43 were graded). The Hospital Safety Score is the gold standard rating for patient safety, compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading patient safety experts and administered by The Leapfrog Group.

“This “A” grade demonstrates that Valley Medical Center is one of the safest hospitals in the region, and the nation, for patients to receive care. Our team is committed to delivering safe, high-quality patient care day in and day out,” Kathryn Beattie, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Valley Medical Center, said in a press release. “The safety of our patients has always been a top priority here at Valley, and we will continue to strive to provide the best possible care to our patients and the community we serve.”

Developed under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single A, B, C, D, or F score, representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm.

More than 2,500 U.S. hospitals were assigned scores in October 2015, with 773 hospitals receiving an A grade. The Hospital Safety Score is the first and only hospital safety rating to be peer-reviewed in the Journal of Patient Safety and is designed to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.

-from a press release