How Safe Are New Hampshire Hospitals?

Check Your Hospital’s Safety Grade

Twice a year, the Leapfrog Group grades hospitals nationwide based on national performance measures* to produce an A, B, C, D or F letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

Leapfrog uses their data to rank states on patient safety. As of the Fall of 2025, Leapfrog ranks New Hampshire 14th out of 50 states in patient safety. 

New Hampshire hospital safety grades for Fall 2025

What is the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade?

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade was launched in 2012 to help increase awareness of hospital errors, injuries, accidents and infections.

The Safety Grade includes 32 measures of patient safety, including:

• Infections, such as MRSA, C. diff, infections in the blood during ICU stay or surgical site infections.
• Surgical mistakes, such as objects left behind, death from treatable complications, collapsed lung
• Error prevention practices, such as handwashing, communication about medicines,  ordering medicines through a computer
• Patient safety problems, such as dangerous bed sores, patient falls, air or gas bubble in the blood
• Doctor, nurse and hospital staffing, such as enough qualified nurses, specially trained doctors for ICU patients, responsiveness of hospital staff...

How Safe Is Your Hospital?

Go to www.hospitalsafetygrade.org to search by hospital or state to view specific hospital scores

* National performance measures include those from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Hospital Association’s Annual Survey and Health Information Technology Supplement.

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NH Hospitals: 64 Adverse Events Reported to DHHS in 2015

About a year ago we highlighted a Report on Medical Errors at NH Hospitals and the excellent coverage by InDepthNH.org, which ran a series of articles on the 29 adverse events — or medical errors — that New Hampshire hospitals are required to report to the Department of Health and Human Services. That reporting detailed the latest data from 2014.

Late last year, 2015 adverse reporting data was released, and again covered by InDepthNH.org.

State Law Requires New Hampshire To Track 29 Hospital Errors That Are Never Supposed To Happen... https://t.co/MONcZK9tfi #NH #patientsafety

— Lubin & Meyer PC (@LubinandMeyer) November 30, 2016

This post is a brief update to last year's report with a link to the full NH DHHS report. To see which NH hospitals reported which adverse events, click on this link: NH Adverse Event Reporting.

NH Adverse Events Decrease, More Improvement Needed

By definition, these events must be “largely, if not entirely, preventable.” There were 64 such events in NH hospitals in 2015.

Number of preventable serious events at NH hospitals from 2010-2015.

 

Breakdown of adverse events: 10 surgical events, 21 falls, 22 pressure ulcers; 11 other

For a list of the 29 hospital errors that must be reported (also known as "never events"), see our previous post which provides a full list of the types of unwanted hospital events.

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Report on Medical Errors at NH Hospitals

A series of articles on the reporting of adverse events — serious medical errors also known as "never events" — by NH hospitals is available at: InDepthNH.org. There are 29 types of errors — all considered to be avoidable mistakes — that hospitals must report to the Department of Health and Human Services. (See the full list below.)

The most recent data from 2014, shows 73 never events were reported. These include 25 patient falls and 22 pressure ulcers, as well as 14 surgery-related errors at NH hospitals including Catholic Medical Center, Concord Hospital, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, and Portsmouth Regional Hospital.

How did your hospital do? See the full public document listing the type of adverse events reported by each NH hospital at this NHDHHS web page.

Serious Medical Errors Plague Hospitals in NH https://t.co/wmklmgtJQo via @nancywestnews

— Lubin & Meyer PC (@LubinandMeyer) March 10, 2016

What Are Never Events?

Here is the list of 29 adverse events that hospitals in NH must report in an effort to reduce medical errors and improve patient safety, as reported by Nancy West at InDepthNH.org

Surgical or invasive procedure events

• Surgery or other invasive procedure performed on the wrong site
• Surgery or other invasive procedure performed on the wrong patient
• Wrong surgical or other invasive procedure performed on a patient
• Unintended retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery or other invasive procedure
• Intraoperative or immediately postoperative/post procedure death in an ASA Class 1 patient

Product or device events

• Patient death or serious injury associated with the use of contaminated drugs, devices, or biologics provided by the healthcare setting
• Patient death or serious injury associated with the use or function of a device in patient care, in which the device is used or functions other than as intended
• Patient death or serious injury associated with intravascular air embolism that occurs while being cared for in a healthcare setting

Patient protection events

• Discharge or release of a patient/resident of any age, who is unable to make decisions, to other than an authorized person
• Patient death or serious injury associated with patient elopement (disappearance)
• Patient suicide, attempted suicide, or self-harm that results in serious injury, while being cared for in a healthcare setting

Care management events

• Patient death or serious injury associated with a medication error (e.g., errors involving the wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong patient, wrong time, wrong rate, wrong preparation, or wrong route of administration)
• Patient death or serious injury associated with unsafe administration of blood products
• Maternal death or serious injury associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy while being cared for in a healthcare setting
• Death or serious injury of a neonate associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy
• Patient death or serious injury associated with a fall while being cared for in a healthcare setting
• Any Stage 3, Stage 4, and unstageable pressure ulcers acquired after admission/presentation to a healthcare setting
• Artificial insemination with the wrong donor sperm or wrong egg (updated)
• Patient death or serious injury resulting from the irretrievable loss of an irreplaceable biological specimen
• Patient death or serious injury resulting from failure to follow up or communicate laboratory, pathology, or radiology test results

Environmental events

• Patient or staff death or serious injury associated with an electric shock in the course of a patient care process in a healthcare setting
• Any incident in which systems designated for oxygen or other gas to be delivered to a patient contain no gas, the wrong gas, or are contaminated by toxic substances
• Patient or staff death or serious injury associated with a burn incurred from any source in the course of a patient care process in a healthcare setting
• Patient death or serious injury associated with the use of physical restraints or bedrails while being cared for in a healthcare setting

Radiologic events

• Death or serious injury of a patient or staff associated with the introduction of a metallic object into the M RI area

Potential criminal events

• Any instance of care ordered by or provided by someone impersonating a physician, nurse, pharmacist, or other licensed healthcare provider
• Abduction of a patient/resident of any age
• Sexual abuse/assault on a patient or staff member within or on the grounds of a healthcare setting
• Death or serious injury of a patient or staff member resulting from a physical assault (i.e., battery) that occurs within or on the grounds of a healthcare setting

Lubin & Meyer PC - New Hampshire's Leader in Medical Malpractice Law

Six Ways To Help Prevent Hospital Infections

As a follow up to our previous post on NH hospital infection data, we wanted to share these six tips from the CDC on protecting yourself as a patient from healthcare-associated infection.

Best infection control? Prevention! Wash your hands & make sure your providers always wash theirs, too. #VitalSigns pic.twitter.com/HM7WN65oNM

— CDC (@CDCgov) August 10, 2015

1. Speak up. Talk to your doctor about all questions or worries you have. Ask them what they are doing to protect you. If you have a catheter, ask each day if it is necessary.

2. Keep hands clean. Ask everyone cleans their hands before touching you.

3. Antibiotics. Ask if they will test effectiveness of antibiotic if prescribed.

4. Know the signs of infection. Some skin infections, such as MRSA, appear as redness, pain or drainage at an IV catheter site or surgery site.

5. Watch out for  c. diff. If you have 3 or more diarrhea episodes in 24 hours, tell your physician, especially if you are on an antibiotic.

6. Protect yourself. Get vaccinated against flu and other infections to avoid complications.

For more detail on each of these six tips, please see this page from the CDC.

Lubin & Meyer PC - New Hampshire's Leader in Medical Malpractice Law

How Do NH Hospitals Measure Up in Avoiding Infections?

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recently released national and state-by-state progress reports on the efforts by healthcare facilities to eliminate Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs).

The report highlights the six most common infection types:

• Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI)
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI)
• Surgical site infections (SSI) - Abdominal Hysterectomy
• Surgical site infections (SSI) - Colon Surgery
• MRSA Bacteremia - Laboratory identified hospital-onset bloodstream infections 
• C. difficile - Laboratory identified hospital-onset infections

When compared to the national baseline, New Hampshire hospitals show significantly lower infections (reports use 2013 data). However, compared to 2012 state level data, NH showed an increase in surgical site infections (SSIs) — a 40% increase in SSIs related to abdominal hysterectomies and a 13% increase in SSIs related to colon surgery.

View NH Fact Sheet on Hospital Infections

For more detailed information, download the New Hampshire Fact Sheet.

See also:

• Full Health-Associated Infections Progress Report
•  HAIs and prevention activities in New Hampshire

Lubin & Meyer PC - New Hampshire's Leader in Medical Malpractice Law