What is the best hospital in the Myrtle Beach area?

McLeod Loris Hospital was the only Myrtle Beach-area hospital to received an ‘A’ in recently-released rankings from the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades organization.

Leapfrog is non-profit organization that assigns each hospital a letter grade ranging from ‘D’ (the worst) to ‘A’ (the best).

In our area, only one one received a ‘C,’ according the rankings. No hospital received the ‘D.’

The non-profit organization uses data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the CDC and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to rank the hospitals, according to its website.

The data is used to rank hospitals by how well each facility performs in “keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors,” according to Leapfrog. The methodology for determining the ranking is overseen by a panel of doctors, including some from Harvard, Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Conway Medical Center was the only Myrtle Beach-area hospital to receive a ‘C’ grade from the organization.

“Leapfrog’s primary method of evaluating hospitals is via voluntary participation in the Leapfrog Hospital Safe Practices survey,” said Conway Medical Center spokesperson Julie Rajotte in an email. “Since Conway Medical Center does not report to Leap Frog at this time, their reporting metrics on our organization are incomplete.”

Rajotte said said the hospital uses other accrediting agencies such as Det Norske Veritas Healthcare, which is compliant to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS.

The CMS gives Conway Medical Center four out of five stars, with the average hospital in the U.S. receiving three stars.

McLeod Loris Hospital was the only hospital in the area to receive an “A” ranking from the group.

Here’s how hospitals around here rank.

• McLeod Loris Hospital: A
• Grand Strand Medical Center: B
• McLeod Seacoast Hospital: B
• Tidelands Waccamaw Community Hospital: B
• Tidelands Georgetown Memorial Hospital: B
• Conway Medical Center: C

This story was originally published November 8, 2017 at 2:28 PM with the headline "What is the best hospital in the Myrtle Beach area?."