These Are WI's Safest Hospitals, New Ranking Says

WISCONSIN — A new hospital safety report released Thursday shows 16 hospitals in Wisconsin earned “A” grades based on their ability to protect their patients from often preventable harm.

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

According to the safety grades, no Wisconsin hospitals received an 'F' or ‘D’ grade.

Additionally, 11 hospitals received a 'B' and six got a 'C'.

“A” hospitals in Wisconsin are:

• Aurora Medical Center Grafton
• Aurora Medical Center of Washington County
• Mayo Clinic Health System-Eau Claire
• Mayo Clinic Health System-La Crosse
• Ascension NE Wisconsin - St Elizabeth Campus
• Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital - St. Joseph Campus
• Aurora BayCare Medical Center
• Aurora Lakeland Medical Center
• Aurora Medical Center Bay Area
• Aurora Medical Center Manitowoc County
• Aurora Medical Center of Kenosha
• Aurora Medical Center of Oshkosh
• Aurora Medical Center Sheboygan County
• Aurora Medical Center Summit
• Aurora St. Luke's South Shore of Aurora Health Care Metro
• Watertown Regional Medical Center

You can see the full rankings here.

Across the nation, 11 hospitals have earned "A" grades on all 27 evaluation rounds over the 13 years of the report card.

They include: Mayo Clinic-Phoenix in Arizona; French Hospital Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Anaheim Medical Center in California; Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital, Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois; Saint Anne’s Hospital (Massachusetts); Inova Loudoun Hospital, Sentara CarePlex Hospital and Sentara Leigh Hospital in Virginia; and Virginia Mason Medical Center in Washington.

Leah Binder, the president and chief executive of The Leapfrog Group, said “A” grades should be a source of pride for hospitals, but she warned them not to “rest on that laurel.”

“Patient safety is a relentless, never-ending quest to put patients first,” she said in a news release. “That’s why Leapfrog is highlighting the hospitals across the U.S. that have earned Straight A’s for over two years. Sustaining an A over multiple years reflects a deep-rooted commitment to patient safety.”

The top five states with the highest share of Straight A hospitals since spring 2023 are Utah (29 percent), Connecticut (29 percent), New Jersey (27 percent), Rhode Island (22 percent) and Virginia (20 percent).

States with no Straight A hospitals for consistent performance over the past five grading cycles are Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.

The states with the highest percentage of A Grades for spring 2026 are Utah, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, South Carolina and Virginia.