How safe are hospitals in Tacoma? See latest grades for patient care

Looking for a hospital in Tacoma, but unsure where to go?

The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization focused on increasing safety and transparency in the U.S. health system, issues Hospital Safety Grade reports twice a year for general hospitals across the United States.

Grades are based on hospitals’ ability to “protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections,” The Leapfrog Group said.

The most recent report, released May 6, includes four hospitals in Tacoma.

Here’s how local medical care centers scored:

How does The Leapfrog Group evaluate hospitals?

The Leapfrog Group grades hospitals on a scale from A to F, with A being the highest grade and F the lowest.

The grade system is the only hospital rating focused entirely on patient safety, according to a May 6 news release from The Leapfrog Group.

The nonprofit analyzes up to 22 measures in five key categories: infections, problems with surgery, safety problems, practices to prevent errors and doctors, nurses and hospital staff.

These measures, which include hand hygiene, air embolisms, in-hospital falls and communication factors, are used to determine a grade representing a hospital’s “performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors,” according to The Leapfrog Group’s methodology report.

Nine hospitals in the Evergreen State received “A” grades, according to The Leapfrog Group.

None of the 41 hospitals graded in Washington state received “F” grades.

Seven hospitals in Washington state were not given safety grades in the spring 2026 report, following a recent federal court ruling.

For its spring 2026 report, The Leapfrog Group said it did not assign grades to 450 hospitals nationwide that chose not to participate in its 2024 or 2025 survey. Instead, those facilities were labeled as “grade not assigned.”

Some hospitals are not evaluated at all, including critical access hospitals, rural emergency hospitals, mental health facilities and any hospitals missing too many scores in their dataset, The Leapfrog Group said.

What are the safest hospitals in Tacoma?

Two Tacoma hospitals received “A” grades in The Leapfrog Group’s spring 2026 report.

St. Joseph Medical Center, 1717 South J St. in Tacoma, received an A for patient care, the hospital’s sixth-straight A grade.

In each key category, the hospital performed better than average in multiple measures, but below average in just one measure.

St. Joseph Medical Center performed better than average in preventing blood and urinary tract infections, but scored worse in terms of preventing sepsis after surgery.

In the surgical problems category, the hospital scored better than average when it came to blood leakage and accidental cuts, but worse for deaths from serious treatable complications, according to the report.

Madigan Army Medical Center, 9040 Jackson Ave. in Tacoma, also received an “A” grade.

Madigan received an A for both 2025 reports, a C in the spring 2024 report and a B in the fall 2024 report.

The hospital excelled at the staffing and “practices to prevent errors” key categories, performing better than average in every measure except how staff worked together to prevent errors.

The hospital scored better than average for multiple measures regarding safety problems, including dangerous blood clots, bubbles in the blood and “harmful events,” according to the report.

It performed worse than average in terms of preventing most infections.

What are the least safe hospitals in Tacoma?

Two hospitals in Tacoma received “C” grades for patient care, including MultiCare Allenmore Hospital at 1901 South Union Ave.

The hospital has received C grades for all of the past six grade reports but one. In spring 2025, it got a “B” grade.

The hospital performed worse than average in almost every measure in the surgical problems category, including blood leakage, accidental cuts and serious breathing problems.

The hospital was missing some data for the category focused on infections, but it performed worse than average in all of the measures that were evaluated.

MultiCare Allenmore Hospital did better than average in terms of preventing safety problems measures such as patient falls and collapsed lungs.

It also performed well in terms of practices to prevent errors, including handwashing and safe medication administration.

Tacoma General Hospital, 315 Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Tacoma, also received a “C” grade.

This is down from the “B” grade it received during both reports over the past two years.

The hospital generally performed worse than average for surgical problem prevention. However, it scored better than average when it came to not leaving dangerous objects in patients’ bodies.

Tacoma General Hospital had strong scores in multiple safety problems measures, including patient falls and collapsed lungs.

It also performed well in terms of practices to prevent errors, including safe medication administration and handwashing.

This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How safe are hospitals in Tacoma? See latest grades for patient care."