Download the Leapfrog Hospital Survey Overview
The Leapfrog Hospital Survey, Leapfrog’s hallmark public reporting initiative, was launched in 2001 and is now in version 9.1. The 2025 Leapfrog Hospital Survey is divided into nine sections:
Hospital Profile
The Hospital Profile includes questions about demographic and contact information. The Profile can be accessed and updated anytime throughout the year after logging into the Online Hospital Survey Tool. The Hospital Profile must be completed and submitted before you can access Sections 1-9 and the CPOE Evaluation Tool on the Survey Dashboard.
Section 1: Patient Rights and Ethics
Section 1 includes questions about your hospital’s billing ethics, health care equity, and informed consent processes. This section also includes questions on your hospital bed size, admissions, ICUs, and teaching status.
Section 2: Medication Safety
Section 2 includes questions about your hospital’s use of CPOE and BCMA, and (for adult and general hospitals) questions about your hospital’s medication reconciliation process. The EHR application subsection (2B) is only applicable to adult and general hospitals and will not be scored or publicly reported. In 2025, three questions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications were added to subsection 2B – these questions are optional and will not be scored or publicly reported.
Section 3: Adult and Pediatric Complex Surgery
Section 3 includes questions about your hospital volume and process for privileging surgeons for eleven high-risk procedures, outcomes for mitral valve repair and replacement, and participation in The Society of Thoracic Surgeon’s Congenital Heart Surgery Database for hospitals that perform the Norwood procedure. This section also includes questions about the implementation of a safe surgery checklist.
Section 4: Maternity Care
Section 4 includes questions about maternity care volume and services, cesarean birth, episiotomy, newborn bilirubin screening, and DVT prophylaxis for women undergoing cesarean delivery. The section also includes questions about high-risk deliveries, including volume and outcomes. The subsection on cesarean birth (4C) includes questions about cesarean births stratified by race/ethnicity that will not be scored or publicly reported, however, responses will be used for confidential reporting on the Hospital Details Page in 2025.
Section 5: Physician and Nurse Staffing
Section 5 includes questions about the management of critical care patients and the staffing structure of your hospital’s adult and pediatric general medical, surgical, medical/surgical, and neuro ICUs, and questions about your hospital’s nursing staffing and skill mix (previously included in Section 6).
Section 6: Patient Safety Practices
Section 6 includes questions about your hospital’s adherence to two National Quality Forum-endorsed Safe Practices, and questions about your hospital’s hand hygiene practices. It also includes a subsection on diagnostic excellence (6D) and a new subsection on Hospital Boarding in the Emergency Department (ED) (6E) – both subsections are optional and will not be scored or publicly reported.
Section 7: Managing Serious Errors
Section 7 includes questions about about your hospital’s response to Never Events. In addition, Leapfrog collects information via its NHSN Group about five healthcare-associated infections (CLABSI, CAUTI, MRSA, C. diff., and SSI: Colon). Hospitals reporting on Section 7B: Healthcare-Associated Infections are required to join Leapfrog’s NHSN Group. Important information and deadlines are available on the Join NHSN Group page.
Section 8: Pediatric Care
Section 8 includes questions about patient experience (CAHPS Child Hospital Survey) and Computed Tomography (CT) radiation dose for pediatric patients.
Section 9: Outpatient Procedures
Section 9 includes questions about the volume and safety of same-day procedures performed in hospital outpatient departments, as well as the experience of patients who had a same-day surgery performed.
Section 1: Patient Rights and Ethics, Section 2: Medication Safety, Section 4: Maternity Care, Section 5: Physician and Nurse Staffing, Section 6: Patient Safety Practices, and Section 7: Managing Serious Errors are required to submit a Survey via the Online Hospital Survey Tool. Hospitals are strongly urged to submit all sections of the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and can indicate within a section if a measure does not apply.
In addition to the Survey questions, adult and general hospitals that indicate they have a CPOE system in at least one inpatient unit are asked to demonstrate, via a test, that the inpatient CPOE system can alert physicians to at least 60% of frequent serious medication errors known to cause harm to patients. Adult and general hospitals can access the CPOE Evaluation Tool immediately after completing the Hospital Profile in the Online Hospital Survey Tool. Carefully review the information on the Prepare for a CPOE Tool webpage.
Any changes made to the measure specifications after April 1 will be reflected in the hard copy of the Survey in the Reference Information sections under the “Change Summary” header (see Table of Contents). In addition, the updates to the specifications will be highlighted in yellow. If the changes are substantial, we will email the Primary Survey Contact your hospital provided in the Hospital Profile of the Online Hospital Survey Tool. If the notification is sent before your hospital submits a 2025 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the email will go to the Primary Survey Contact provided in the previous year’s Survey.
The Leapfrog Group and its participating members are committed to presenting information that is as current as possible, therefore we allow hospitals to update and resubmit their Survey until the November 30 Late Submission and Performance Update Deadline. Please carefully review the reporting periods in each section before updating your Survey. Leapfrog Hospital Survey Results are updated monthly beginning in July on Leapfrog’s public reporting website. Hospitals are required to update the information in their Survey within 30 days of any change in status. We reserve the right to decertify information that is not current. More information on updating your Survey is available on the Updating Your Hospital Survey webpage.