Half of the hospitals in the Green Bay and Fox Valley areas ranked at the top of Leapfrog’s safety grades, while the other half ranked lower.
Leapfrog is a nonprofit created by employers and organizations that buy health insurance. The safety grades are released every year to help guide patients in determining where to go for their care. Leapfrog’s released its spring scores May 2.
But Leapfrog is just one of several organizations that rank or evaluate hospitals on their safety, so experts warn not to make medical decisions primarily based on the ratings. In northeastern Wisconsin, some health systems did not participate in Leapfrog’s hospital survey or had incomplete data, which impacted their scores.
Here’s what Leapfrog’s latest safety grades found in the Green Bay and Fox Valley areas.
Leapfrog releases scores twice a year for hospitals nationwide. The grades are based on 22 safety measures such as falls and trauma, hand hygiene, staff communication, complications and infections after surgery.
The safety measures are scored based on data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and results from a Leapfrog survey sent out to hospitals.
Three hospitals in the Green Bay and Appleton areas ranked high, getting A’s on Leapfrog’s spring report:
Ascension and Aurora Health Care, which runs Aurora BayCare, told the Press-Gazette the grades are reflective of their high care.
ThedaCare Regional Medical Center in Neenah got a C grade.
On the other end of the report, three area hospitals got a D grade. ThedaCare and Hospital Sisters Health System, which owns St Mary’s and St. Vincent hospitals in Green Bay, did not participate in Leapfrog’s survey so some of the data used to determine their hospitals’ safety scores were not available and impacted their low grades for both health systems’ hospitals. All other area hospitals responded to the survey.:
“Providing high-quality and safe care is a promise we provide to the many people we are privileged to serve,” ThedaCare said in a statement to the Press-Gazette. “Our grades from The Leapfrog Group reflects our decision not to participate in survey, rather than the quality of care we provide.”
Instead of Leapfrog, ThedaCare participates in Vizient’s hospital evaluation which named ThedaCare’s Neenah and Appleton hospitals as top performers in 2024.
“HSHS is committed to providing high-quality, safe and effective care. We continuously monitor and improve internal quality measures and support public reporting to help patients make informed decisions. Because hospital ratings vary by organization and methodology, we encourage patients to discuss care options with their providers,” HSHS said in a statement.
Leapfrog is not the only organization that releases scores for hospitals’ performance. Some hospitals will perform higher on one organization’s report, while ranking lower on others.
Vizient, Healthgrades, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and U.S. News and World Report also evaluate hospitals and share results. Each evaluation focuses on different safety factors and calculates hospitals differently. On CMS’ ratings, for example, both St. Vincent and St. Mary’s hospitals performed higher than Leapfrog at a 4 out of 5.
A USA TODAY analysis in 2019, found that often there was little or no overlap in annual ratings. That’s why the evaluations should be taken lightly, and choosing a hospital should not be based primarily off the results of one of the organization’s scores.
Contact Benita Mathew at bmathew@gannett.com.
