CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs received an “A” grade in the spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades, a national distinction recognizing the Southwest Arkansas hospital’s achievements protecting patients from errors, injuries, accidents and infections. The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization that assigns grades to all general hospitals across the country and updates those grades every six months.

“CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs is here to provide the very best, compassionate care to the communities we serve and that means always putting patient safety and well being first,” said CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs President Douglas Ross. “Receiving this top grade from Leapfrog is more affirmation that the work we do each and every day is making a positive impact on patient lives. It’s work we do together as part of our healing ministry in Arkansas.”

Over the past year, CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs has been recognized multiple times for the hospital’s advancements in care and service to the Southwest Arkansas community. Those recognitions include national Magnet designation for its continued commitment to nursing excellence; being named one of the Best Places to Work in Arkansas by Arkansas Business and Best Companies Group; and 12 international DAISY Awards for the extraordinary, compassionate care CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs nurses provide to their patients.

“An ‘A’ safety grade is an elite designation that your community should be proud of,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “The past year has been extraordinarily difficult for hospitals, but CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs shows us it is possible to keep a laser focus on patients and their safety, no matter what it takes.”

Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,700 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.