Each year, Healthgrades recognizes America’s safest hospitals as recipients of the Patient Safety Excellence Award™. This year’s announcement coincides with Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 8-14, 2026), a time for hospital teams to review existing safety protocols, celebrate successes, and identify areas of improvement. This occasion also represents an opportunity for hospitals to reaffirm their dedication to safe, high quality care by establishing a safety culture that is built to endure.
In addition to delivering better outcomes, your hospital’s patient safety performance is key to appealing to the ever-evolving expectations of today’s quality-conscious consumers. Americans have become active participants in their own care journeys: they’re more willing to shop around for care, less likely to remain loyal to a hospital or health system, and increasingly reliant on third-party quality achievements to help them find a hospital that meets their needs. As you evaluate your own hospital’s patient safety efforts, Healthgrades has identified four specific areas of performance highly correlated to achieving strong patient safety results that you’ll want to consider.
How Healthgrades Measures Patient Safety
Patient safety ratings are based on the rate at which serious, potentially preventable complications and adverse events occur in the hospital. To determine the recipients of the 2026 Patient Safety Excellence Award, Healthgrades evaluated hospital performance across 13 AHRQ-defined patient safety indicators (PSIs)–administrative data-based measures that identify preventable in-hospital patient safety events–spanning the continuum of care, from postoperative sepsis to in-hospital falls resulting in fracture. Healthgrades found that if all U.S. hospitals performed as well as Patient Safety Excellence Award-winning facilities, over 100,000 patient safety events could have been avoided during the 2022-2024 study period.*
To be eligible for a Patient Safety Excellence Award, a hospital must meet high clinical quality thresholds, collect data on at least seven core PSIs, and have zero incidents in which a foreign object was left in the body during a surgery or procedure. To learn more about how Healthgrades calculates patient safety, check out our full methodology. Otherwise, keep reading to find out how Healthgrades can help your care team cultivate a resilient safety culture.
Prioritize the Core Four
Although each PSI represents a critical area of focus for patient safety, it’s crucial to prioritize your improvement efforts. Consider focusing on the following four PSIs that accounted for nearly 78% of all patient safety events between 2022 and 2024:*
- In-hospital falls resulting in hip fracture
- Collapsed lung resulting from a procedure or surgery in or around the chest
- Catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired in the hospital
- Pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital
Healthgrades’ analysis revealed a significant correlation between high performance in these four key PSIs and receiving the Patient Safety Excellence Award.
Focusing on existing safety protocols in these areas can help your hospital stand out and improve your performance and ratings. Contact a Healthgrades team member to learn how Healthgrades’ Quality Insights Platform can help your busy clinical teams drive continuous quality improvement.
Keep scrolling to view Healthgrades’ 2026 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient list.
Discover America’s Safest Hospitals for 2026
Make the List?
Contact a Healthgrades team member to license your achievement and learn how you can promote your award-winning safety culture.
*Statistics are calculated from Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award Methodology, which is based primarily on AHRQ technical specifications (Version 2025.0.1) to MedPAR data for years 2022 through 2024 and represent three-year estimates for Medicare patients only.
