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MIDDLEBURG – Ascension St. Vincent’s Clay County, Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside, and Ascension St. Vincent’s Southside each earned an ‘A’ in the spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction recognizing Ascension St. Vincent’s commitment to clinical and service excellence, protecting patients from harm and providing safer, higher quality healthcare. The hospitals also received ‘A’ grades last fall.

The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization committed to healthcare quality and safety.

“Safety is essential to clinical excellence, providing an exceptional patient experience, and authentically living our Mission. Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast has clearly articulated and reinforced patient safety as a top priority as evidenced by these straight A’s, multiple 5-Star ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, multiple 5-Star ratings from Professional Research Consultants, Inc., and numerous other specialty-specific awards and recognitions,” said Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast President and CEO Tom VanOsdol. “I’m grateful for every physician, every nurse, every caregiver, and everyone on our entire team for dedicated and selfless work to care for those we’re so blessed to serve. Recognitions like these require a total team effort and clearly demonstrate our differentiated expertise with respect to the quality of our care, and caring.”

“An ‘A’ safety grade is an elite designation that your community should be proud of,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “The past year has been extraordinarily difficult for hospitals, but Ascension St. Vincent’s shows us it is possible to keep a laser focus on patients and their safety, no matter what it takes.”

The Safety Grade assigns an ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, or ‘F’ grade to all general acute care hospitals across the country and is updated every six months. It is based on a hospital’s performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care.

Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,700 U.S. acute care hospitals twice a year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.

To see each hospital’s full grade details and access patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org. To learn more about Ascension St. Vincent’s, visit www.jaxhealth.com.

Read more about the strength of Clay County's healthcare sector here.