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How safe is your hospital? See the latest grade for each Philly-area facility in a new national report.

Leapfrog, a hospital rating organization, gave A's to 20 hospitals in the Philadelphia region.

Three Main Line Health hospitals, including Riddle Hospital in Media, have gotten A ratings from the Leapfrog Group for the past four years.
Three Main Line Health hospitals, including Riddle Hospital in Media, have gotten A ratings from the Leapfrog Group for the past four years.Read moreTyger Williams / Staff Photographer

Fewer than half of the hospitals in the Philadelphia area earned top marks for safety this week from the Leapfrog Group, a hospital rating organization.

Leapfrog’s spring 2024 report gave letter grades for safety to some 3,000 hospitals nationally, including 49 in the Philadelphia region, which includes the city’s Pennsylvania suburbs, South Jersey, and Wilmington, Del. Specialty hospitals, such as Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, were not graded.

The organization bases its grades on more than 30 indicators from the federal government and its own survey of hospitals. Analysts look at rates of preventable errors and infections; how well hospitals follow procedures, such as handwashing, known to improve patient outcomes; and whether they have adequate staffing, among other factors. The data capture hospital safety measures from 2020 through March 2023.

Critics have questioned the value of such ratings, because hospitals sometimes receive conflicting ratings, and some argue that the ratings organization doesn’t adequately account for some hospitals caring for a greater portion of patients who have complex medical problems and may be at greater risk for complications.

Overall, 41% of hospitals in the Philadelphia region earned an A in the grades that Leapfrog releases twice a year. Here are the latest local highlights:

  1. Twenty hospitals received an A rating. Seven of them have gotten straight As for the past four years: Bryn Mawr Hospital, Paoli Hospital, and Riddle Hospital (all three owned by Main Line Health); Doylestown Hospital; Holy Redeemer Hospital; and Jefferson Washington Township Hospital in New Jersey.

  2. Four hospitals were downgraded from an A to a C rating since last spring’s ratings: Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey; Jefferson Frankford and Jefferson Torresdale (both owned by Jefferson Health); and Pennsylvania Hospital.

  3. Roxborough Memorial Hospital had the greatest improvement. Leapfrog gave the Philadelphia community hospital an A rating, up from a C this time last year.

  4. Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital both received a D, the lowest rating among hospitals in the region. The two Delaware County hospitals, owned by Crozer Health, have received Ds or Cs from Leapfrog for the past four years.

» READ MORE: Piles of biohazard bags, delayed medications: inspection reports find ongoing problems at Crozer-Chester

Lehigh Valley leads the nation

New this spring, Leapfrog rated metro areas for their overall hospital safety and ranked the top 25 regions with the greatest portion of A-rated hospitals.

The Lehigh Valley region took top honors with nearly 73% of hospitals in the region that includes Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, and parts of New Jersey receiving an A grade.

The Harrisburg-Carlisle metro area tied for 13th, with 53% of hospitals receiving an A.

Philadelphia, with 41% of hospitals receiving an A rating, didn’t make Leapfrog’s list of top 25 metropolitan areas for hospital safety.

Check out our interactive chart to see how your Philly-area hospital stacks up. Find a full breakdown of each hospital’s score on Leapfrog’s website.