Catawba Valley Medical Center (CVMC) has received an ‘A’ Hospital
Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group for Spring 2024. This national distinction
recognizes CVMC’s achievements in protecting patients from preventable
harm and error in the hospital, as well as meeting the highest safety
standards in the United States.
CVMC earned the only ‘A’ grade for the Unifour region (Alexander,
Burke, Caldwell, and Catawba). This marks the 15th ‘A’ grade for safety that CVMC has received in Leapfrog’s
last 16 reporting periods.
The Leapfrog Group, an independent national watchdog organization, assigns
an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,”
or “F” grade to general hospitals across the country based
on over 30 national performance measures reflecting errors, injuries,
accidents and infections, as well as systems hospitals have in place to
prevent harm. Results are updated each fall and spring. Less than one-third
of all U.S. hospitals achieve an ‘A’ grade.
Michelle Lusk, Chief Nursing Officer of Catawba Valley Health System, said,
“It truly is remarkable that our team has continued to perform at
the highest possible level year after year to ensure that our patients
receive exceptional care. Safety and quality must be the top priorities
in a healthcare setting, and we’re so proud to show this region
our commitment to these priorities above all else.”
“Everyone who works at CVMC should be proud of this ‘A’
Hospital Safety Grade,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The
Leapfrog Group. “It takes complete dedication of at every level,
and an ironclad commitment to putting patients first. I thank CVMC, its
leadership, clinicians, staff, and volunteers for caring so deeply for
its patients and their safety.”
The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the only hospital ratings program
based exclusively on hospital prevention of medical errors and harms to
patients. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of
publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than
2,700 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 at HospitalSafetyGrade.org.