2 Valley Hospitals Earn 'Straight A' Grades In New Hospital Safety Ranking

A new hospital safety report released Wednesday shows that 14 hospitals in Los Angeles County earned "A" grades for their ability to protect patients from often preventable harm. Two hospitals in the San Fernando Valley earned the highest grade possible.

The Leapfrog Group's Spring 2026 Hospital Safety Grades are a biannual ranking that assigns "A," "B," "C," "D" or "F" letter grades to all general hospitals in the United States based on their ability to protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections.

In Los Angeles County, there are six "straight A" hospitals and eight "A" hospitals, according to the ranking.

Straight "A" hospitals:

• Adventist Health Glendale
• Kaiser Permanente - Downey Medical Center
• Keck Hospital of USC
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital
• Northridge Hospital Medical Center-Roscoe Boulevard Campus
• Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center

"A" grade hospitals:

• Adventist Health White Memorial
• Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center
• Kaiser Permanente - Los Angeles Medical Center
• Kaiser Permanente - Panorama City Medical Center
• Kaiser Permanente - West Los Angeles Medical Center
• Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center
• St. Francis Medical Center
• USC Verdugo Hills Hospital

"B" grade hospitals:

• Cedars-Sinai Marina Del Rey Hospital
• Emanate Health Inter-Community Hospital
• Encino Hospital Medical Center
• Greater El Monte Community Hospital
• Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center
• Huntington Hospital
• Kaiser Permanente - South Bay Medical Center
• Kaiser Permanente - Woodland Hills Medical Center
• Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center
• Los Angeles County - Olive View UCLA Medical Center
• Los Angeles General Medical Center
• Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center San Pedro
• Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center
• Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
• San Dimas Community Hospital
• San Gabriel Valley Medical Center
• Sherman Oaks Hospital
• St. Mary Medical Center of Long Beach
• UCLA Medical Center of Santa Monica
• Valley Presbyterian Hospital

Additionally, 67 California hospitals received a "C" and two in Los Angeles County — Los Angeles Community Hospital and Norwalk Community Hospital — got a "D" grade.

Patch has reached out to those hospitals for a response to the ranking.

Norwalk Community Hospital's grade is an improvement from last year's "F" grade. At the time, hospital officials told Patch, "The grades issued to our California hospitals do not accurately reflect their safety levels. The grades are based on incomplete information as we are in the process of submitting a late response. We expect that our hospitals will receive higher safety grades once our responses are submitted.”

Leapfrog said its biannual report — the only national ratings program focused exclusively on patient safety — shows improvement in 17 measures, including health care-associated infections, medication safety systems and patient experience.

"The good news is that hospitals across the country are making meaningful strides in patient safety and helping save countless lives," Leah Binder, the group's president and CEO, said in a news release.

After peaking in fall 2022, several health care-associated infections declined sharply, according to the report. Central line-associated bloodstream infections fell by half; catheter-associated urinary tract infections dropped 45 percent; methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections declined 42 percent; and serious intestinal infections linked to antibiotic use went down 30 percent.

The report also found gains in medication safety. Use of computerized physician order entry systems, which can flag prescribing errors, rose from 66 percent of hospitals meeting Leapfrog standards in 2018 to 90 percent in 2025. Adoption of barcode medication administration systems increased from 47 percent to 93 percent over the same period.

Patient experience scores, measured through Medicare and other federal surveys, have improved since hitting a low in fall 2023, rising by about one point on average across five safety-related measures, including communication with nurses and doctors and responsiveness of hospital staff.

About 450 hospitals were not assigned grades after a federal court ruling in South Florida involving several facilities that did not participate in Leapfrog's 2024 or 2025 survey. The group said it applied the change nationwide and is appealing the decision while reviewing its methodology.

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