Performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Hospital Association’s Annual Survey and Health Information Technology Supplement are used to establish a hospital’s score.

The expert panel uses 30 publicly available measures of hospital safety data to determine the weight of each measure based on evidence, opportunity for improvement and impact.