Kaiser Permanente’s Manteca Medical Center and Modesto Medical Center both received the top score of “A” by the Leapfrog Group in its annual safety report released Wednesday.

They are among the 20 Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California to receive the highest grade.

The Leapfrog Group graded more than 2,500 hospitals throughout the United States.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits, released its Hospital Safety Scores after examining publicly available data on patient injuries, medical and medication errors and infections at U.S.  hospitals, which were then assigned A, B, C, D, or F grades for their safety records.

“We are pleased that Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Modesto and Manteca are once again being recognized for high quality health care,” said Corwin Harper, senior vice president and area manager for Kaiser Permanente Central Valley. “Our physicians, nurses, and staff work diligently to provide our patients with high-quality and safe care, day after day, so this is a reaffirmation of the good work that they do.”

Manteca and Modesto medical centers also received top scores in the Leapfrog Group’s last safety report in May.

The Leapfrog Group is a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage founded in 2000 to work for improvements in health care safety, quality and affordability.  It is an independent advocacy group working with a broad range of partners, including hospitals and insurers. Since 2006, the organization has published an annual list of Top Hospitals in the U.S. using national measures of health-care quality, safety and efficiency. This is the second year it has published the Hospital Safety Scores, which uses 26 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries, and medical and medication errors.