LEWISTON — Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center earned the highest grades for hospital safety from The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit, independent watchdog organization. CMMC has received an A from the organization for every biannual review since fall 2018, making this their ninth consecutive top mark, hospital officials said in a release Thursday.

St. Mary’s grade was an improvement from the spring evaluation, in which they received a “B.”

“Safety is the number one consideration in everything we do at Central Maine Healthcare,” Steve Littleson, president and CEO of CMMC’s parent company, said in a release.

The hospital’s streak of top marks “does not happen by accident,” he said.

“It reflects the professionalism and high standards all of our team members practice every day. I could not be prouder of this team for their continued focus on safety that earned them this grade, particularly at this time of unprecedented challenges in the healthcare industry,” Littleson said.

“It represents the tireless effort and dedication that our employees deliver to make St. Mary’s Hospital a safe environment for our patients,” St. Mary’s president Steve Jorgensen said in a release.

The Leapfrog Group assigns hospitals an A, B, C, D or F grade based on more than 30 national measures of patient safety, from healthcare-associated infections to maternity care, and as well as safety preparedness and harm prevention. The group uses data submitted in a hospital survey as well as from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to evaluate safety against national standards developed by a panel of experts.

CMMC and St. Mary’s are among seven Maine hospitals to receive an A grade from The Leapfrog Group for its fall 2022 grades. The organization graded a total of 16 hospitals in its biannual review.

The Leapfrog Group ranked Bridgton Hospital and Rumford Hospital, also under the CMH umbrella, among its “Top Rural Hospitals” in the U.S. in 2021.