Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital in Port St. Lucie saw its grade improve from a C to a B in the biannual Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade rankings released last week.
HCA Florida St. Lucie Hospital in Port St. Lucie once again garnered top marks with an A – the county’s only A-rated hospital for safety – while HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce maintained the B grade it earned in the Spring 2025 rankings.
Among the factors in its improved Fall 2025 grade, Tradition Hospital upped its scores in many areas of the “Process and Structural Measures” category. Total Nursing Care Hours per Patient Day jumped 30 points from 40 to 70. Scores also rose from 2 to 4 points in the areas of nurse communication, doctor communication, staff responsiveness, communication about medicines and discharge information.
“We are pleased that Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital has progressed to a Leapfrog Health Safety Grade of B,” said Dr. Chirag Choudhary, vice president and chief medical officer of Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital.
“We offer safe, reliable and compassionate care to every patient, regardless of recognition, and continually improve our processes to provide the best care possible.
“In addition to improved scoring through Leapfrog, Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital (along with Cleveland Clinic Weston Hospital) was recognized in the 2025 Vizient Performance Awards as a top performer. Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital ranks in the 92nd percentile nationally for Vizient’s safety, quality and experience composite score,” Choudhary said via email.
There were minimal changes in both HCA hospitals in St. Lucie County, with “Culture of Leadership Structures” down 10 points since Spring 2025.
At Lawnwood, scores also rose from 2 to 4 points in the areas of nurse communication, doctor communication, staff responsiveness, communication about medicines, and discharge information. The numbers are slightly under the national mean for all, with the exception of staff responsiveness, which was less than a point higher.
HCA Florida St. Lucie Hospital improved 2 points in nurse communication and 1 point in staff responsiveness, and remained the same in the three other categories mentioned above.
Computerized Physician Order Entry decreased 30 points since the Spring 2025 results.
“HCA Florida Healthcare takes a systemic approach to continually measuring and improving quality and patient safety. We’re proud of our dedicated physicians, nurses and colleagues who provide exceptional care for our patients each day,” said Alexander Hagan, director of communications and community engagement at HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital.
“We remain focused on continually improving patient outcomes and safety across all our hospitals,” he said, speaking for both HCA hospitals in the county.
St. Lucie County’s newest hospital, Florida Coast Medical Center, is not listed in the Fall 2025 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades as the hospital opened just over two months ago and has not been operational long enough to be scored.
Twice annually, Leapfrog assigns letter grades ranging from A to F to almost 3,000 general acute-care hospitals nationwide. They use a variety of different sources, including patient and employee experience surveys, and incidents reported to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“The Leapfrog Group was founded 25 years ago to improve American healthcare through transparency, and the Safety Grade has been a cornerstone of that effort,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of the group in a Nov. 13 press release announcing the release of the Fall grades.
“As we mark this milestone year, for the first time we’re looking at how consolidation impacts patient safety. We want to understand if system leadership accelerates patient safety or not,” she said.
Ninety percent of hospitals with a Fall 2025 safety grade are part of a health system, which refers to healthcare facilities owned or managed by a “single parent organization.”
Ninety-four percent of hospitals graded with an A are system affiliated. HCA Healthcare comes in first for the number of hospitals within a hospital system, with A ratings at 51. Of those 51, 18 are reported as having straight A’s (holding the A grade for more than two years in a row). HCA Florida St Lucie Hospital is one of the 18.
According to Leapfrog, the Safety Grade methodology has been peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.
Florida hospitals ranked 15 nationwide, with 37.9 percent of hospitals being A graded.
While fall grades were released to the public on Nov. 13, hospitals are notified of their grades about six days in advance of release in case they want to dispute the data.