Economic Alliance for Michigan
Hospital Grades Shows Hospitals in Michigan Lacking in Patient Safety
Michigan ranks 29th nationally for hospital patient safety
NOVI, MICHIGAN, November 15, 2024 – The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit representing hundreds of the nation’s most influential employers and purchasers of health care, today released the Fall 2024 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade. Driven In Michigan by the Economic Alliance for Michigan (EAM), the grades provide a critical measure of patient safety for hospitals nationwide. The grades reflect preventable medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections that together kill more than 500 people a day in the United States.
The Fall 2024 Hospital Safety Grade shows hospitals nationwide are making strides in patient safety across several performance measures including improvements in healthcare-associated infections, hand hygiene and medication safety.
Michigan ranked 29th in the country for hospital patient safety. Of the 81 Michigan hospitals graded, 22 earned an “A,” 29 earned a “B,” 26 earned a “C,” two earned a “D,” and two earned an “F.”
Other key takeaways from the Fall 2024 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades were:
- The hospitals of the McLaren Health Care system either stayed the same or improved their grades. McLaren Flint earned a “B” grade this marking period – a vast improvement from their Fall 2023 “F” grade.
- The hospital system scoring the lowest for patient safety was the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) with one hospital earning a “C,” one a “D,” and two scoring “F” grades.
- Almost 50 percent of hospitals that scored a grade of “C” or lower are located in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties – the state’s most populous area.
“Even though this round of Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades show improvements in patient safety on a national level, the trend in patient safety in Michigan is going the wrong direction,” said Bret Jackson, president and CEO of EAM. “DMC was once a leader in the field with one of the safest hospitals in the country, now they are letting patients down. A culture of safety begins at the top, and I call on the leadership team at DMC to put patients at the top of their agenda
Heath equity and access to quality care remains an ongoing issue for vulnerable populations. Only one of the five graded hospitals within the City of Detroit scored an “A,” which was Henry Ford Hospital, a safety net hospital. The other hospital scores within the city were one “C,” one “D,” and two “F’s.
“Residents of Detroit should not worry about entering a hospital and becoming sicker,” said Lois Lofton-Doniver from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. “Thank you to Henry Ford Health for delivering the highest level of patient safety for Detroit; however, the people, families and children of Detroit should have a choice of ‘A’ hospitals to choose from, not ‘F’ hospitals.”
The Leapfrog Group has a more than 10-year history of assigning letter grades to general hospitals throughout the U.S., based on a hospital’s ability to prevent medical errors and harm to patients. The grading system is peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public. Hospital Safety Grade results are based on more than 30 national performance measures and are updated each fall and spring.
Detailed hospital performance information, including patient experience and safety measures, as well as grades for individual hospitals searchable by states and localities is available at HospitalSafetyGrade.org.
CLICK HERE to see the hospital grades for Michigan.