14 Illinois Hospitals Slapped with a D Grade for Patient Safety

Whether it's fair or not, doctors and other medical personnel are held to a higher standard than any other vocation. That's why it's more than a little concerning that 14 hospitals in Illinois were recently slapped with a D grade when it comes to the safety of their patients.

Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade measures hospitals in 4 key areas: errors, injuries, accidents and infections. They issue overall grades for hospitals twice per year, once in the Spring and again later in the Fall. The Fall grades were just shared a few weeks ago and it revealed that there are 14 Illinois hospitals that were given a grade of D for patient safety issues.

Why I can't and won't list the nearly failing grade Illinois hospitals here

Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade shares these grades for individual use only and not for the kind of research I do which (believe it or not) is at a professional level. I have also been frustrated in the past when many just take this list at a superficial level without doing any additional research. I've said it before and I'll emphasize it again. You should never make a judgement about your or someone you love's health care based on an internet list. You can easily go see the safety grades for Illinois hospitals yourself, but make that just a starting point for your own fact-finding and not a conclusion. Your health is much too important to let the internet decide for you.