The Leapfrog Group, a hospital watchdog, has given MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena an A for safety in its fall 2024 grading.

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.

Though the Leapfrog scorer continued to have concerns about the Alpena hospital’s operations — including continued sepsis infections after surgery, harmful events, collapsed lungs, dangerous blood clots, and 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.

The hospital’s leaders and its staff deserve much credit for work.

In three scorings in a row, the hospital saw it had room to improve.

So improve it did.

The hospital improved best practices, training, and communication among staff and between staff and patients and came out vastly improved.

We say congratulations and thanks to the hospital team for creating a safer place for patients.