Mercy Health – St. Rita’s Medical Center once again was awarded an ‘A’ in the fall  Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction recognizing St. Rita’s achievements providing safer health care. 

This is the sixth consecutive top grade awarded to St. Rita’s by the nationally recognized rating organization.

The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization committed to health care quality and safety. The Safety Grade is a letter grade assigned to all general hospitals across the country and updated every six months, assessing how well the hospital performs in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care.

“The St. Rita’s team has remained steadfast in our commitment to provide the highest quality, most compassionate care to our community, even during such an unprecedented year in health care,” said Ronda Lehman, president, Mercy Health – Lima. “This recognition shows that despite the many challenges our teams have encountered, St. Rita’s will always put the care of our patients first.”

“We are extremely grateful to hospital leadership and health care workers who have remained steadfast in prioritizing patient safety as our nation battles COVID-19,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “This ‘A’ is a testament to the care and commitment of those who work for St. Rita’s. With the current pandemic exposing existing flaws within the U.S. health care system, we appreciate you putting patient safety first. Lives depend on it.”

Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.