Hospitals are where people usually go to address immediate medical emergencies. People involved in car crashes or who suspect that they just had a cardiac event head straight to the hospital. Many primary care physicians have admitting privileges at local hospitals and may send their patients for more intensive support when circumstances warrant aggressive interventions.
Staying in a hospital can lead to a better outcome for someone battling a major illness, recovering from an injury or in need of intensive support because of medical challenges. Unfortunately, not all hospitals provide the same standard of care.
According to a private analysis of hospitals across Rhode Island, some of them provide much better medical care than others. People intending to undergo surgery or facing inpatient care at the hospital may want to check on whether their hospital receives a competitive grade when compared with modern best practices.
Rhode Island has relatively safe hospitals
In many states, there are multiple hospitals that do not receive passing grades according to Leapfrog, a private organization that evaluates medical data about individual facilities to assign a letter grade to different hospitals.
Overall, no hospitals evaluated in Rhode Island received D grades or lower. The worst local hospitals received C grades based on reports from early 2025. This indicates that their services are simply average, and that there may be reason for concern for patients.
The Rhode Island hospitals with a C grade include Roger Williams Medical Center, Our Lady of Fatima Hospital and Kent Hospital. Individual reports about these hospitals identify post-surgical complications and hospital-borne infections as leading issues that resulted in lower scores.
South County Hospital received a B grade and was the only state hospital in that category. Multiple hospitals received an A, including Rhode Island Hospital, The Miriam Hospital, Landmark Medical Center, Newport Hospital and Westerly Hospital.
Even a hospital that currently has an A or B grade might only be one or two egregious errors away from a much worse score. Patients may want to select hospitals that have a reputation for better cleanliness and favorable surgical outcomes. They may also want to evaluate the score of a hospital where they or a loved one received seemingly substandard medical treatment recently.
Pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit can compensate those harmed by poor care standards, preventable medical mistakes and hospital-borne infections. Not every hospital in Rhode Island provides ideal care standards for patients, but the patients affected by mediocre medical care still have rights.