UCSF Health Hospitals Earn Top Honors for Patient Safety

Three UCSF Health hospitals received “A” ratings in the spring 2025 Hospital Safety Grades from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit watchdog focused on patient safety. Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades are assigned to nearly 3,000 general acute-care hospitals across the nation twice annually, in the fall and spring.

The prestigious designation was awarded to the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, and UCSF Health St. Mary’s Hospital. UCSF Health Medical Center at Mission Bay has received an “A” grade for eight rating cycles in a row, and UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights has received an “A” grade for five rating cycles in a row, earning both hospitals Leapfrog’s elite Straight “A” designation.

“All of us at UCSF Health share the same goal of providing exceptional, compassionate health care to every patient,” said UCSF Health President and Chief Executive Officer Suresh Gunasekaran. “This recognition honors the dedicated teams across our system who fulfill that commitment every day – including the team at St. Mary’s, whose integration into UCSF has brought valuable clinical experience and strong community connections to our work.”

Leapfrog assigns an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” grade to general hospitals across the country based on over 30 measures of errors, accidents, injuries, and infections as well as the systems hospitals have in place to prevent them. The Safety Grade is the gold standard measure of patient safety.

“At UCSF, exceptional quality and patient safety are at the heart of how we care for patients and serve our communities,” said Amy Lu, UCSF chief quality officer and vice president. “Our top Leapfrog ‘A’ grades reflect the extraordinary dedication and expertise of our teams, who are continually improving our systems and workflows to ensure safe, reliable, and compassionate care every day.”

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade stands as the only hospital ratings program focused solely on preventable medical errors, infections, and injuries that kill more than 500 patients per day in the U.S. This program is peer-reviewed, fully transparent, and free to the public.

UCSF Health consistently ranks among the nation’s leaders across health care’s most highly regarded rating systems. In addition to receiving “A” Hospital Safety Grades, UCSF Health hospitals have received the Top Hospital award from The Leapfrog Group. For three years in a row, Vizient has recognized UCSF Health as a top performer in its annual patient-care study. UCSF Medical Center has received a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for quality of care and is consistently named among the nation’s top hospitals by U.S. News & World Report. UCSF Medical Center has also achieved the gold standard “Magnet recognition” for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center for more than a decade.

About UCSF Health: UCSF Health is recognized worldwide for its innovative patient care, reflecting the latest medical knowledge, advanced technologies and pioneering research. It includes the flagship UCSF Medical Center, which is a top-ranked hospital, as well as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, with campuses in San Francisco and Oakland; two community hospitals, UCSF Health St. Mary’s and UCSF Health Saint Francis; Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians; and the UCSF Faculty Practice. These hospitals serve as the academic medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, which is world-renowned for its graduate-level health sciences education and biomedical research. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. Visit ucsfhealth.org. Follow UCSF Health on Facebook or on LinkedIn.

About The Leapfrog Group: Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps for patient safety. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections.