Chicago-based Saint Anthony Hospital has sued the Leapfrog Group, alleging the organization used the wrong information when it lowered the hospital's patient safety grade in a report released last week.

The hospital claims that LeapFrog knew the information it used to lower Saint Anthony's grade from an A to a C was inaccurate and is asking the Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court to force LeapFrog to retract the grade.

The grade is wrong, the hospital alleges, as it's based on LeapFrog's inaccurate assessment that Saint Anthony's physicians only order medications through CPOE 50 to 74 percent of the time. However, the hospital claims that its physicians use CPOE 95 percent of the time.

[Also: These hospitals earned an 'A' for patient safety in Leapfrog's Fall 2017 ratings]
[Also: See which hospitals got an 'F' from Leapfrog in fall 2017, risking patient safety]

Saint Anthony claimed it contacted LeapFrog multiple times to "discuss that it was misrepresenting CPOE statistics," and LeapFrog said it was the CPOE score that negatively impacted the overall grade.

In the suit, the hospital said it doesn't want LeapFrog to retract the other grades or stop publication of the entire report -- just to adjust the false grade.

LeapFrog never told Saint Anthony that it would adjust the grade.

"Saint Anthony has been compelled to bring this action to prevent LeapFrog from knowingly disparaging the quality  of Saint Anthony's services by assigning Saint Anthony a Hospital Safety Grade that LeapFrog knows is false," according to the suit.

The hospital filed a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop publication of Saint Anthony's hospital safety grade until the updated CPOE data was submitted to LeapFrog. The court agreed to the motion. At the time of publication, Saint Anthony was not included in search results for the safety grades.

LeapFrog released its biannual safety grades report on Oct. 31. The majority of hospitals (964) received a B rating and 662 received an A, while 159 were graded a C.

Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com