UChicago Medicine Receives 17th Consecutive 'A' Grade in Patient Safety
The University of Chicago Medicine earned its 17th consecutive A in patient safety from the Leapfrog Group, as the number of U.S. hospitals earning the industry watchdog’s top grade in all of its survey periods continues to shrink.
UChicago Medicine is one of only 32 organizations in the country to have consistently received the top mark in patient safety since Leapfrog began the twice-yearly survey in 2012. There were 36 hospitals with such a record last fall; five years ago, there were182 hospitals.
“This record on safety underscores the commitment to excellence in patient care of our entire UChicago Medicine community,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD, Dean and Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs at the University of Chicago. “Our longstanding multidisciplinary approach to care has enabled us to produce the types of rigorous policies and procedures that support safety throughout a patient’s continuum of care with us.”
The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 publicly available measures of hospital safety to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals. The methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.
“We’re very proud of this record, and it’s an honor we take very seriously, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Emily Chase, PhD, RN, NE-BC, FACHE, Senior Vice President for Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer. “Our clinical and non-clinical teams remain dedicated to the safety of our patients while they are in our care.”
To see details of UChicago Medicine’s performance and that of other medical centers, visit