COVINGTON, Ga. - Piedmont Newton Hospital was awarded an "A" from The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade. 

The designation recognizes Piedmont Newton’s efforts in protecting patients from harm and providing safer health care. Seven of Piedmont Healthcare’s 11 hospitals received A grades in The Leapfrog Group’s Spring 2019 Hospital Safety Grade, making it the safest healthcare system in Georgia with more A grades than any other healthcare system in the state.

“To be recognized as an A hospital demonstrates that patient safety is a priority at Piedmont Newton,” Eric Bour, MD, chief executive officer of Piedmont Newton, said. “It shows our community that everyone who works at Piedmont Newton has made a commitment to provide the high quality, safe care our patients deserve and expect.”

The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization committed to improving health care quality and safety for consumers and purchasers. The Safety Grade assigns an A, B, C, D or F grade to hospitals across the country based on their performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care.

“Hospitals that earn an A grade are making it a priority to protect patients from preventable medical harm and error. We congratulate hospital leaders, board members, staff, volunteers and clinicians who work so hard to earn this A,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said. 

Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 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.

To learn more about Piedmont Newton Hospital, visit www.piedmont.org/newton.