Maine hospitals score well for safety this fall, but grades dip

entrance to hospital, with sign on the left, and the sky at dusk

File photo Central Maine Medical Center, in Lewiston, was one of seven Maine hospitals that received A's in the latest safety grades from the Leapfrog Group.

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By William Hall

Maine hospitals once again fared well in a national evaluation of patient safety, but not quite as well as in the past.

The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit watchdog group that monitors the quality of health care in the U.S., recently released its fall 2021 safety grades for 2,900 general hospitals nationwide, including 17 in Maine. Seven of them received the best grade, A, for criteria that measured how well hospitals prevent medical errors, accidents and infections that kill or harm patients.

In the spring of 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, 11 of 17 Maine hospitals received A's. The most recent Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade study, in April, gave A’s to nine of 16 hospitals evaluated in the state. That assessment ranked Maine No. 3 in the U.S. for the highest percentage of facilities receiving the top mark.

This time, according to a news release, Maine is not among the five states with the highest percentages: Virginia, North Carolina, Idaho, Massachusetts and Colorado.

The A-listers in the newest evaluation are:

A.R. Gould Hospital, in Presque Isle
Central Maine Medical Center, in Lewiston
Franklin Memorial Hospital, in Farmington
Maine Medical Center, in Portland
Mid Coast Hospital, in Brunswick
Pen Bay Medical Center, in Rockport
Southern Maine Health Care, in Biddeford.

All seven of the hospitals have received A’s in at least two previous gradings, which Leapfrog conducts through a peer review process in the spring and fall each year. The hospitals represent Maine’s three largest health care systems: A.R. Gould is part of Northern Light Health, Central Maine Medical Center is the flagship hospital of Central Maine Healthcare, and the other five hospitals are all part of MaineHealth.

However, some previous high scorers received poorer grades this fall.

Maine Coast Hospital, a 64-bed Northern Light facility in Ellsworth, received a D, after getting C’s in the two previous gradings. Previously, the hospital had received a string of A’s dating to the spring of 2018.

Cary Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Caribou, had received A’s since 2019, but earned a C this month.

And York Hospital, which had received straight A’s until getting a B in the spring, now has a C.

Nationwide, 32% of hospitals received an A this fall, 26% received a B, 35% received a C, 7% received a D, and less than 1% received an F, according to Leapfrog.

Leah Binder, a Maine native and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based organization, said in the release, "As the pandemic continues, we all have heightened awareness of the importance of hospitals in our communities and in our lives. It is critical that all hospitals put patient safety first. Now we have more information on more hospitals than ever before, so people can protect themselves and their families."

For more information about the gradings and the individual performances of each hospital click here.