Five Network Hospitals Ranked among Safest in Country

Five St. Luke’s University Health Network hospitals have been identified among the safest in the United States by Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit hospital watchdog organization.

For the third consecutive year, St. Luke’s University Hospital in Bethlehem has been named one of the nation’s Top Hospitals in the Teaching Hospital category by Leapfrog Group.

St. Luke's Allentown Campus, St. Luke's Anderson Campus and St. Luke's Warren Campus were also recognized as Top Hospitals in the Teaching Hospital category by Leapfrog Group. Meanwhile, St. Luke's Monroe Campus won as a Top General Hospital. 

Recognition for safety by the Leapfrog Group is one of the health industry’s most prestigious honors. Unlike many other health care awards, it is based entirely on an independent, scientific review of objective data.

St. Luke’s is proud to be the only health care network in the region to have earned Leapfrog’s Top Hospital recognition in the Major Teaching Hospital category for three straight years.

“This award is a credit to St. Luke’s outstanding leadership, providers, nurses and hospital staff and volunteers who day in and day out maintain an unwavering focus on quality and patient satisfaction,” says St. Luke’s Chief Quality Officer Donna Sabol. “I couldn’t be prouder to work with such wonderful caregivers.”

Leapfrog's Top Hospital award recognizes the highest performing hospitals across many areas of hospital care, including infection rates, maternity care and the hospital’s capacity to prevent medication errors.

For 2020, Leapfrog has honored just 105 hospitals nationwide in four categories — Top Teaching, Top General, Top Rural and Top Children's hospitals — for its annual Top Hospital award. Less than 5% of all eligible facilities receive the award, widely considered among the most prestigious an American hospital can receive.

The Leapfrog award is further acknowledgement of St. Luke’s commitment to excellence. St. Luke’s also was recently named the winner of the 2020 Richard A. Norling Premier Alliance Excellence Award. Premier Inc. presented the annual award to St. Luke’s for exemplifying the highest level of industry innovation and advancements in delivering high-quality, cost-effective care.

For the Leapfrog Top Hospital award, data is gathered and publicly reported through the Leapfrog Hospital Survey. The survey compares hospitals' performance on national standards of patient safety, quality, efficiency and management structures that prevent errors, providing the most comprehensive picture of how patients fare at individual institutions. The data collected also enables hospitals to benchmark their progress toward Leapfrog's standards and measure the care they deliver.

“2020 put hospitals nationwide to the test in the most unforeseen and unprecedented ways, so we are particularly proud to recognize excellence in the hospital industry this year,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “All hospitals deserve our gratitude and these facilities, in particular, shine. Receiving the Top Hospital award, Leapfrog's most prestigious and competitive award, should be celebrated.”