2 Athens area hospitals score A grade in safety, according to nonprofit's analysis

Miguel Legoas, Augusta Chronicle
·2 min read

Two Athens area hospitals were recently highlight by The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization focused on health care transparency and safety.

In the latest Hospital Safety Grades list, Georgia ranked 21st in the nation, with 24 hospitals — a little more than 30% of hospitals in the state — scoring an A grade in safety. Piedmont Athens Regional and Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow were both among the hospitals awarded As.

Georgia improved its ranking by 10 spots after being No. 31 in the 2023 spring list.

The list is updated twice a year and its methodology is centered around hospital prevention of medical errors and harms to patients. This includes several measures such as surgery problems, communication with hospital staff, patient falls and infections.

Here is the full list of Georgia hospital that received an A grade in safety:

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Utah had the highest percentage of grade-A hospitals in the U.S. this fall. The other top 10 states, in order, are Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Connecticut, Montana, Tennessee, Florida and Texas. Some states had no grade-A hospitals and were the lowest performers, including Vermont, Wyoming, Delaware, Washington, DC, and North Dakota.

For more information, go to HospitalSafetyGrade.org.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Athens area hospitals score A grade in safety, according to Leapfrog