Six rural Maine hospitals top the country’s for safety and quality, according to new evaluations by a health care watchdog, the Leapfrog Group — and the state now has another reason to boast, too.
Maine is the “Top State of the Decade for Patient Safety,” the Washington, D.C.-based group announced Tuesday at its virtual annual meeting.
The first-ever award recognizes Maine hospitals for scoring in Leapfrog’s top grading tier more often than those in any other state. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, issued twice annually, awards grades of “A” through “F” to hospitals based on how well they prevent errors, accidents, injuries and infections.
Maine has ranked No. 1 in the percentage of “A” hospitals more times than any other state, Leapfrog said. The state has ranked first among states in nine of 20 grade updates, and has been ranked in the top five among states for another seven grade cycles.
In the most recent evaluation, released last month, 11 of 17 eligible Maine hospitals got an “A.” A total of 2,900 general hospitals across the U.S. were graded.
The A-listers also compete in a separate evaluation to determine the Leapfrog Top Hospitals. This year, Leapfrog chose 149 hospitals nationwide, in four categories, for that distinction. Of the 23 hospitals recognized as the Top Rural Hospitals, the greatest number are from Maine:
- Bridgton Hospital
- Houlton Regional Hospital
- LincolnHealth, in Damariscotta
- Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital
- Pen Bay Medical Center, in Rockport
- Rumford Hospital.
Besides the rural honorees, no other Maine hospitals made the roster. Across New England, no other state made the top rural list, and only Massachusetts hospitals received as many awards in any category as hospitals in Maine did.
In 2020, five rural Maine hospitals — including three of this year’s honorees, LincolnHealth, Northern Light Blue Hill and Pen Bay — were named tops. In 2019, only Waldo County General Hospital, in Belfast, made the list.
The Leapfrog Group, founded in 2000, began the Top Hospital awards in 2006.
Commenting on Maine’s “Top State of the Decade” award, Leapfrog President and CEO Leah Binder, a native of the state, said, “No other state came close to Maine’s achievement when we looked at the data. Receiving the highest percentage of ‘A’ graded hospitals many times over for a decade shows that patients are the priority in Maine. Thousands of lives would be saved every year if all states performed as well as Maine does.”