Five Mayo Clinic Health System hospitals in Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Fairmont, Minnesota, La Crosse, Wisconsin; Mankato, Minnesota, and Red Wing, Minnesota  are being recognized with an A grade — the best possible — by The Leapfrog Group, an independent, national non-profit organization that assigns Hospital Safety Grades to 2,600 acute-care hospitals across the nation.

“We are incredibly proud to receive an ‘A’ grade for the safety and quality of care provided at our Mayo Clinic Health System hospitals in Mankato and Fairmont,” says James Hebl, M.D., regional vice president, Southwest Minnesota Region, Mayo Clinic Health System. “The quality ranking is a reflection of the commitment, dedication and expertise of our staff who provide Mayo Clinic care close to home each and every day. We are grateful to have such wonderful staff caring for patients in the communities we serve.”

Mayo Clinic Rochester, Mayo Clinic Arizona and Mayo Clinic Florida also earned A grades.

The Hospital Safety Score is updated and published twice per year. This score is based on 15 measures of publicly available hospital safety data, combined with seven additional self-reported survey answers, to produce a single patient safety score. A panel of safety experts developed these measures.

“It goes without saying the pandemic has provided us with many challenges, especially when it comes to our patients’ safety,” says Prathibha Varkey, M.B.B.S., president of Mayo Clinic Health System. “Yet our staff has been able to prove that despite difficult times, they will rise to the challenge no matter what the circumstances are. These high safety grades continue to help reassure confidence in our patients across many communities.”

The Hospital Safety Grades provide patients with a single measure that represents a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable errors, injuries, accidents and infections.