Leapfrog scores hospitals on the Safe Practices, with a total possible score of 737 points. Some of the 17 safe practices hospitals are asked to report on in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey are given more points than others as they are considered more important to the level of quality. Hospital’s overall scores are then ranked by quartiles.  Each quartile is then shown by filled bars on our results pages.

While a hospital's Safe Practices Score has not been shown to have a definitive relationship with their inpatient mortality rate (Kernisan 2009), the Safe Practices are a series of important process steps to improving overall patient safety in hospitals.