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North Carolina is still in the top ten safest states for healthcare, according to a national watchdog, but two Raleigh hospitals still received a C and a D grade.
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The Leapfrog Group released its Spring 2026 Hospital Safety Grades evaluating hospitals with letter grades from A to F. North Carolina is tied for 8th safest in the country with Maryland, a slight drop from the fall.
The News & Observer previously covered the highest scoring hospitals in the spring 2026 Leapfrog safety grades.
Here’s a closer look at Raleigh’s grades and what they mean.
Leapfrog’s Hospital Safety Grades are assigned twice a year, in the spring and fall. The Hospital Safety Grade program was established in 2012.
Grades are assigned using letters, with A as the best grade and F as the worst. The grades are assigned using data from various public sources, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A Florida judge recently ordered Leapfrog to scrub poor patient safety grades for several Florida hospitals, The Miami Herald reported. The judge described the methodology as misleading, and “punitive” for healthcare systems that choose not to participate.
In a video explaining how to use the hospital safety grades, Leapfrog recommends using them to inform your decision when researching hospitals near you. Leapfrog offers a search tool on the homepage at hospitalsafetygrade.org. Hospitals are searchable by hospital name, city and state, just state, or ZIP code.
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Wilson Medical Center got the only C grade in the Triangle area, and Granville Medical Center got the only D. The News & Observer reached out Tuesday, May 12 and is still awaiting response from both hospitals. Granville is in Oxford, about an hour from Raleigh. The town of Wilson is also just under an hour away.
Leapfrog evaluates hospital safety based on the prevention of medical errors, illnesses, injuries and infections.
The group uses up data on 32 safety measures to evaluate hospitals. If a hospital is missing too many pieces of data, the hospital is not graded. Leapfrog reports on five patient experience measures that directly impact patient safety:
Portions of this story were previously published in The News & Observer. Inspired by a story from The Sacramento Bee in California.
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