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MIDLAND – The Leapfrog Group, a national watchdog for hospital quality and safety, has released its latest hospital safety grades. These grades are issued twice each year–in the fall and again in the spring–with the national average typically a “C.”

MyMichigan Medical Centers earned strong marks in this latest report. The Medical Centers in Alma and West Branch each received their fifth consecutive “A.” MyMichigan Medical Center Midland improved to an “A.” The Medical Centers in Alpena and Saginaw earned “B” grades. MyMichigan Medical Center Sault maintained a “C,” just shy of the threshold for a “B” and is showing significant improvement.

Leapfrog emphasizes that the absence of a grade does not indicate poor performance, but rather insufficient data to assign a grade. As a result, the MyMichigan Medical Centers in Clare, Gladwin, Standish and Tawas were not graded in this cycle.

The Leapfrog Group evaluates hospitals using up to 32 performance measures. Larger hospitals are typically assessed across all measures, while smaller hospitals may be evaluated on fewer due to lower patient volumes. This can make it more challenging for smaller facilities to achieve top grades, as individual measures carry greater weight.

Across the system, MyMichigan Health maintains a strong focus on patient safety. Its Medical Centers consistently perform above average on measures that assess safeguards and best practices designed to prevent accidental harm. Also used in grading are scores provided by patients on the experience of their care. All MyMichigan Medical Centers achieved higher than average patient experience scores.

Bryan Cross, Pharm.D., president and CEO, MyMichigan Health, is pleased to see the positive trend in performance, highlighting the fact that it speaks to the strength of the organization’s ability to integrate best practices and processes across a ten-hospital health system such as one electronic medical record. He added that the organization is encouraged by the strong Leapfrog ratings and the measurable progress achieved since the data was collected, reinforcing its commitment to delivering safe, high-quality care.

Developed under the guidance of a national expert panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade system is peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public. The biannual Hospital Safety Grade results are based on more than 30 national performance measures and are updated each fall and spring and the results are free to the public.