News File Photo The entrance to MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena’s patient tower is seen in this April 2022 News archive photo.

ALPENA — For the second time in a row, the Alpena hospital received an A for safety from hospital watchdog the Leapfrog Group.

Scores released today by Leapfrog show MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena received high marks for not leaving dangerous objects in patients during surgery, for avoiding air or gas bubbles in patients’ blood, for all practices to prevent errors — including ordering medications by computer, administering medication safely, handwashing, communicating about medicines, communicating about discharge instructions, and staff working together to prevent errors — and for effective leadership to prevent errors, communication with doctors and nurses, and the responsiveness of hospital staff.

The Alpena hospital received middling scores for clostridium difficile infections, infections in the blood and urinary tract, for surgical wounds splitting open, for blood leakage, for kidney injury after surgery, for serious breathing problems, for accidental cuts and tears, for dangerous bed sores, for patient falls and injuries, for falls causing broken hips, and for bedside care for patients.

The Alpena hospital performed below the national average for sepsis infections after surgery, for harmful events, for collapsed lungs, for dangerous blood clots, and for a lack of doctors specially trained to care for intensive care unit patients.

The Alpena hospital’s best practices outweighed the scorer’s concerns. The hospital received a 120, equal to any of the best hospitals in the nation. The average American hospital received a 117.4, according to Leapfrog.

MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena also received an A in Leapfrog’s last scoring in fall 2023, vastly improved from the hospital’s C ranking in the previous three Leapfrog gradings in spring 2023, spring 2022, and fall 2021. The hospital received an A in spring 2021.

Other hospitals owned by MyMichigan Health, the Midland-based owner of the Alpena hospital, also did well, according to a news release today from the health care system.

MyMichigan hospitals in Alma, and West Branch also maintained consecutive A grades, while the health care system’s Saginaw medical center earned a B.

Hospitals in Midland and Sault Ste. Marie earned Cs, though Sault Ste. Marie’s overall safety score improved.

Leapfrog did not grade MyMichigan Health’s Clare and Tawas hospitals because patient volumes at those places did not meet scoring criteria. Leapfrog does not grade critical access hospitals like those in Standish and Gladwin.

“Receiving strong grades from Leapfrog means a lot to us as we continue to encounter external challenges like national nurse and provider shortages, increasing severity of illness in our patient populations, and changing regulatory, reimbursement and cyber landscapes,” Dr. Lydia Watson, president and CEO of MyMichigan Health, said in a written statement today. “We work first to ensure we are meeting best practices in patient safety. It’s a commitment we look at each and every day no matter what’s in front of us. We have recently made significant reductions in health care-associated infections and postoperative complications, and we have ongoing work to prevent falls with injuries. There is an inherent time lag with the quality improvements and the eventual impact on the overall scores. The work being done now will impact our Leapfrog grades in 2026 and beyond. So, while it will take a few periods for the scoring to catch up to current improvements, we continue to appreciate Leapfrog’s aim to inform consumers on hospital safety and we are very proud of all we have accomplished.”

“Preventable deaths and harm in hospitals have been a major policy concern for decades,” Leah Binder, Leapfrog’s president and CEO, said in a statement on the group’s website today. “So, it is good news that Leapfrog’s latest Safety Grades reveal that hospitals across the country are making notable gains in patient safety, saving countless lives. Next, we need hospitals to accelerate this progress — because no one should have to die from a preventable error in a hospital.”

Michigan ranked 29th out of the 50 states for the number of hospitals with an A grade. About 27% of Michigan hospitals received an A.

Utah ranked first in the nation, with about 61% of hospitals receiving an A.

Iowa, both Dakotas, and Vermont all had zero A hospitals.