Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest and Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg each received an ‘A’ grade on the Hospital Safety Grade report from The Leapfrog Group for fall 2018. The ratings reflect how well hospitals protect patients from accidents, errors, injuries and infections. The Safety Score is designed to give the public information that is useful for choosing a hospital for care.

Lehigh Valley Health Network’s hospitals are among 855 in the country awarded an ‘A’ grade for efforts in protecting patients from harm and meeting the highest safety standards in the U.S.

“The ‘A’ grades for this important measure of quality reflect the dedication and commitment of all our colleagues—physicians, nurses and many, many others—to ensure that the safety of our patients always comes first,” said Brian Nester, DO, MBA, FACOEP, LVHN’s President and Chief Executive Officer, “This safe environment is conducive to the high quality care patients expect and deserve.”

“Leapfrog’s Hospital Safety Grades recognize hospitals like Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest and Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg that focus on advancing patient safety. This ranking provides an important resource for patients, and a benchmark for hospitals, to determine how care at one hospital compares to others in a region,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “Hospitals that earn an A Hospital Safety Grade deserve to be recognized for their efforts in preventing medical harm and errors.”

Developed under the guidance of a National Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.