HICKORY, NC – Catawba Valley Medical Center (CVMC) has received an ‘A’ Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade for Fall 2022. This national distinction recognizes CVMC’s achievements in protecting patients from preventable harm and error in the hospital, as well as meeting the highest safety standards in the United States. This marks the thirteenth consecutive ‘A’ grade for safety that CVMC has received dating back to Fall 2016.
The Leapfrog Group, an independent national watchdog organization, assigns an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” grade to general hospitals across the country based on over 30 national performance measures reflecting errors, injuries, accidents and infections, as well as systems hospitals have in place to prevent harm. Results are updated each fall and spring.
Dennis Johnson, president and CEO of Catawba Valley Health System, said, “It truly is remarkable that our team has continued to perform at the highest possible level year after year to ensure that the people we treat are safe. Safety and quality must be the top priorities in a healthcare setting, and I am so proud to show our community that we will stay committed to these priorities above all else.”
“I applaud the Catawba Valley Medical Center’s leadership and workforce for their strong commitment to safety and transparency,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “An ‘A’ Safety Grade is a sign that hospitals are continuously evaluating their performance, so that they can best protect patients. Your hospital team should be extremely proud of their dedication and achievement.”
The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospital prevention of medical errors and harms to patients. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,700 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public at HospitalSafetyGrade.org.