RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — How safe is your hospital? New Leapfrog safety grades are out, scoring hospitals across the country.

The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit focused on patient safety. It gives letter grades to hospitals across the country based on categories like infections, accidents, injuries and errors. It also looks at efforts to prevent mistakes.

“We submit the data to Leapfrog, and they use that to calculate the score,” explained Dr. Meera Udayakumar, the chief medical officer for UNC Rex Hospital.

She says these grades offer an outside perspective that can help the 19 hospitals within the UNC Health System recognize their successes and areas that need improvement.

“They may give us insight into where we can share best practice, from – for example – a hospital that has received an ‘A’ grade with a hospital that has not.”

This map from the Leapfrog Group shows hospital grades across North Carolina. According to the group, our state ranks third in the country for the highest percentage of hospitals with “A” grades.

Some Triangle hospitals that received “A”s include WakeMed, Duke, and UNC Rex. UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill Received a “B.” Cape Fear Valley Medical Center received a “C”, and Granville Medical Center in Oxford was one of two hospitals in NC to receive a “D.” 

UNC Rex has consistently received “A”s. Still, Dr. Udayakumar says every hospital has room to get better.

“When we do get our score, we get a breakdown of how we did within categories so there is opportunity to really hone in on where we can improve,” she noted.

She said Leapfrog grades can be a helpful tool for patients, but she urges everyone to look at multiple sources of data when choosing a hospital. To search for hospitals, click here.