CVMC Earns ‘A’ Grade for Patient Safety in Spring 2026

Catawba Valley Medical Center (CVMC) has received an ‘A’ Hospital Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group for Spring 2026. This national distinction recognizes CVMC’s achievements in protecting patients from preventable harm and error in the hospital, as well as meeting the highest safety standards in the United States.

CVMC earned the only ‘A’ grade for the Unifour region (Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, and Catawba). This marks the 19th ‘A’ grade for safety that CVMC has received in Leapfrog’s last 20 reporting periods. Grades are updated in the fall and spring.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national watchdog organization, assigns an ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ ‘D,’ or ‘F’ grade to general hospitals across the country based on national performance measures reflecting errors, injuries, accidents and infections, as well as systems hospitals have in place to prevent harm. Results are updated each fall and spring. Less than one-third of all U.S. hospitals achieve an ‘A’ grade.

Michelle Lusk, Chief Nursing Officer of Catawba Valley Health System, said, “We have received another ‘A’ rating, in a time when ‘A’ ratings are harder and harder to achieve. This is thanks to our employees, medical staff and leaders who put patient safety as the highest priority. Safety and quality must be the top priorities in a healthcare setting, and we’re so proud to show this region our commitment to this above all else. Only 12 percent of eligible hospitals achieve this score.”

“Achieving an ‘A’ Hospital Safety Grade reflects enormous dedication to patient safety,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “I extend my congratulations to Catawba Valley Medical Center, its leadership, clinicians, staff and volunteers for creating a culture where patients come first.”

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospital prevention of medical errors and harms to patients. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses over 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to nearly 3,000 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public at HospitalSafetyGrade.org.