This story has been updated for clarity
Three Piedmont Hospital locations and two Northside Hospital locations are among the seven safest core metro Atlanta hospitals, according to an analysis published by The Leapfrog Group.
Leapfrog, a national nonprofit and watchdog group, publishes a biannual Hospital Safety Score which tracks and scores more than 2,500 hospitals nationwide on 28 different measures, drawing primarily from government data, resulting in a final converted letter grade of A-F. The score represents "a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors," according to Leapfrog.
Of the 69 Georgia hospitals that received scores for fall 2015, here are the hospitals in the core metro area that received As, and their grades on the individual measures:
• Eastside Medical Center (Snellville): See the score
• Northside Forsyth Hospital (Cumming): See the score
• Northside Hospital (Sandy Springs): See the score
• Piedmont Fayette Hospital (Fayetteville): See the score
• Piedmont Henry Hospital (Stockbridge): See the score
• Piedmont Newnan Hospital (Newnan): See the score
• Wellstar Douglas Hospital (Douglasville): See the score
(A fourth Piedmont location, Piedmont Mountainside in Jasper, also received an A. Piedmont Atlanta received a C.)
Leapfrog grades hospitals in two broad categories: how and where a hospital gives treatment, and what happens after — including rates of inpatient injuries and infections, and medical errors.
Leapfrog uses the most recent publicly available data from the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), among other sources including its voluntary survey. Ten of the score's measures use data reported during 2014, while four of them use data reported from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2013.
"We are fairly confident in our data because we know that it takes time to improve on these things, so we don't see a lot of changes that happen overnight," said Missy Danforth, Leapfrog's vice president for hospital ratings.
The CMS released new data in late October, days before the fall 2015 scores were released, but Leapfrog did not recalculate at that late a date, Danforth said.
