Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) achieved straight ‘A’s’ for the fifth consecutive time in The Leapfrog Group’s Fall 2018 Hospital Safety Grade, released this week. Out of the 46 hospitals in South Carolina, BMH was one of only 14 to receive an A safety rating, and one of only five hospitals statewide to earn the top grade five consecutive times.

With the Hospital Safety Grades, Leapfrog assigns an A, B, C, D or F grade to hospitals across the country based on how safe they are for patients.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>

“Maintaining the highest patient safety performance five times in a row reflects the commitment our staff has made to ensuring we meet the highest safety standards,” said BMH President and CEO Russell Baxley. “It requires constant vigilance from the time a patient enters our doors to keep their safety a top priority.”

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 the grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. Hospitals are graded based on how they scored in five major categories: infections, problems with surgery, practices to prevent errors, safety problems, and doctors, nurses and hospital staff.

“Beaufort Memorial’s continued success in achieving an A rating is evidence that the organization places an emphasis on protecting patients from preventable medical errors, injuries and infections,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “We are inspired by the hospital’s leadership on patient safety.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>

<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public. To see more details on Beaufort Memorial’s Hospital Safety Grade, as well as safety grades of other hospitals in the country, and to access consumer-friendly tips for patients, visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.

<em>Photo by Paul Nurnberg.</em>