These SC hospitals are the most unsafe for 2025. See if your hospital is listed
South Carolina ranks among the highest in the U.S. for hospital safety, but not all of its facilities are equal, a new report shows.
The Leapfrog Group — a national nonprofit that has collected and published data on patient safety and quality care for more than two decades — recently released its spring 2025 Hospital Safety Grades. Hospitals were scored with A through F letter grades.
Overall, South Carolina ranked fifth among states with the safest hospitals, with 47.1% of its facilities earning an A ranking. However, among the 52 South Carolina hospitals, 15 received a C ranking and one received a D ranking. Also, one hospital, Cherokee Medical Center in Gaffney, was not graded — Leapfrog noted that the hospital declined to respond to its survey.
No South Carolina hospital received an F grade.
“All hospitals should be proud to earn an ‘A,’ but they should not rest on that laurel. Patient safety is a relentless, never-ending quest to put patients first,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO, The Leapfrog Group.
How are hospitals rated safe or unsafe?
Leapfrog grades the safety of hospitals in the U.S. based on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections that kill or harm patients. About 30 measures are used to generate the safety grades.
The grades are assigned using publicly available data. Measures’ scores are calculated using patient responses to a national and standardized survey following a hospital visit.
Below are the South Carolina hospitals with the worst safety ratings. To view the entire list, click here. To view safety details about individual hospitals, click on the links below.
Most unsafe SC hospitals
D Grade
222 S. Herlong Avenue
Rock Hill, SC 29732-1952
C Grade
1. Tidelands Georgetown Memorial Hospital
606 Black River Rd
Georgetown, SC 29440-3304
295 Midland Parkway
Summerville, SC 29485
3. Spartanburg Medical Center - Mary Black Campus
1700 Skylyn Dr
Spartanburg, SC 29307-1061
101 E Wood St
Spartanburg, SC 29303-3016
250 Westmoreland Rd
Greer, SC 29651
6. Novant Health Coastal Carolina Medical Center
1000 Medical Center Drive
Hardeeville, SC 29927
7. Newberry County Memorial Hospital
2669 Kinard Street
Newberry, SC 29108
3000 St. Matthews Road
Orangeburg, SC 29118-1470
9. MUSC Health Columbia Medical Center Northeast
120 Gateway Corporate Blvd
Columbia, SC 29203
10. MUSC Health Columbia Medical Center Downtown
2435 Forest Drive
Columbia, SC 29204-2098
11. Medical University of South Carolina University Medical Center
171 Ashley Ave
Charleston, SC 29425
12. Hilton Head Medical Center
25 Hospital Center Boulevard
Hilton Head Island, SC 29926
13. East Cooper Medical Center
2000 Hospital Drive
Mount Pleasant, SC 29464-3294
14. Beaufort Memorial Hospital
955 Ribaut Road
Beaufort, SC 29902
15. Aiken Regional Medical Centers
302 University Parkway
Aiken, SC 29801
Complaints against Leapfrog
In an email to The State, Piedmont Medical Center wrote that it disputed Leapfrog’s rankings and methodology. Piedmont Medical, owned by Tenet Health, added that it supported five of it’s sister hospitals in Florida with their recent legal complaint against Leapfrog over its ranking system.
“Leapfrog’s scoring system deceives patients and rewards hospitals that either pay them or supply free data for their flawed survey, while punishing those that do not participate with inaccurate scores based on fabricated data,” the email states. “We are constantly working to improve patient safety and quality care but these false ratings undermine the doctor-hospital-patient relationship that is essential to positive health outcomes. For these reasons, among others, we, along with more than 20% of hospitals nationally, also refuse to participate in the voluntary survey.”
Key data trends nationwide
- The top five states with the highest share of Straight A hospitals since spring 2023 are Utah (29%), Connecticut (29%), New Jersey (27%), Rhode Island (22%), and Virginia (20%).
- States with no Straight A hospitals are Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.
- States with the highest percentage of A Grades for spring 2025 are Utah, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, South Carolina and Virginia.
- Utah ranks #1 for the fourth consecutive Safety Grade round, and ties for #1 among states with the highest percentage of Straight A hospitals.
- Washington, D.C. ranks #11 for the percentage of A hospitals for spring 2025, marking a significant improvement after years of ranking lowest among states.
- There are no A hospitals in Iowa, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.
This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
