LEWISTON — St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center has been recognized for its dedication to patient safety by being awarded an “A” grade in the fall 2015 Hospital Safety Score.

It rates how well hospitals protect patients from preventable medical errors, injuries and infections within the hospital.

St. Mary’s is also being recognized as a “Straight A’s” hospital for never receiving a grade lower than an “A” from the Hospital Safety Score since the score first launched in June 2012.

An “A” grade is one of the most meaningful honors a hospital can achieve, and one of the most valuable indicators for patients looking for a safe place to receive care. The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of the nation’s leading patient safety experts and administered by The Leapfrog Group, a national, independent nonprofit.

The first and only hospital safety rating to be peer-reviewed in the Journal of Patient Safety, the Hospital Safety Score is free to the public and designed to give consumers information they can use to protect themselves and their families when facing a hospital stay.

Developed under the guidance of Leapfrog’s Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single A, B, C, D, or F score, representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm.