11 BayCare Hospitals Again Earn Top Score for Patient Safety

The Leapfrog Group, a national, independent nonprofit organization that promotes patient safety, announced its Spring 2026 Hospital Safety Grades today, and 11 of BayCare’s eligible  acute-care hospitals once again received an “A,” the group’s highest rating.  

The Leapfrog Group collects and analyzes data about preventable errors, injuries, accidents and infections at nearly 3,000 general acute-care hospitals. In the spring and fall, the Leapfrog Group assigns letter grades ranging from “A” to “F” and releases those grades publicly.

The BayCare hospitals that earned an “A” are: 

• Bartow Regional Medical Center in Bartow
• BayCare Hospital Wesley Chapel in Wesley Chapel
• Mease Countryside Hospital in Safety Harbor
• Mease Dunedin Hospital in Dunedin
• Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater
• Morton Plant North Bay Hospital in New Port Richey
• St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg
• St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa
• St. Joseph’s Hospital-North in Lutz
• St. Joseph’s Hospital-South in Riverview
• Winter Haven Hospital in Winter Haven

“BayCare’s Spring 2026 Leapfrog Safety Grades reflect the strength and consistency of our safety culture, sustaining the phenomenal performance achieved in Fall 2025,” said Laura Arline, MD, FACP, FAAP, BayCare’s chief quality officer. “This level of reliability doesn’t happen by chance. It’s the result of hardwiring our shared commitment to protect every patient, every day. Our focus on ZERO HARM continues to guide our work as we advance clinical excellence across our health care system.”  

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is a composite score that is comprised of the following: 

• Up to 32 evidence-based measures of patient safety, including CMS Medicare PSI 90 Patient Safety and Adverse Events composite that includes 10 component measures, from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
• The Leapfrog Hospital Survey
• Information from other supplemental data sources, including imputed scores

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade represents “a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors,” according to the Leapfrog Group, which notes that the methodology of the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade has been peer-reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.  

See the list of BayCare’s clinical and workplace awards on the BayCare Awards and Recognition page.  

Search the database of spring 2026 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades here.