Nicklaus Children's Hospital Earns Fourth Consecutive Top Children's Hospital Award by The Leapfrog Group for Outstanding Quality and Safety

MIAMI, Jan. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Highlighting its nationally recognized achievements in patient safety and quality, Nicklaus Children's was named a Top Children's Hospital by The Leapfrog Group. This award is one of the most competitive honors hospitals and surgery centers in the United States can receive for their commitment to safety and quality. 

"We are honored to be recognized by The Leapfrog Group as a Top Children's Hospital for the fourth consecutive year and one of six in the state of Florida to receive this honor," said Randy Harmatz, Senior Vice President and Chief Quality and Safety Officer for Nicklaus Children's Hospital. "Quality and safety are at the foundation of everything we do. These are not just metrics we measure, but essential commitments we make to every child and family who walks through our doors. This distinction reflects our entire team's unwavering dedication to meeting the highest standards of care for the families we serve in South Florida and beyond."

Over 2,400 hospitals were considered for the award. Among those, Nicklaus Children's Hospital received a Top Children's distinction. A total of 156 Top Hospitals were selected, including:

15 Top Children's
52 Top General
16 Top Rural
73 Top Teaching

Nicklaus Children's Hospital is 1 of 6 Leapfrog Top Children's Hospitals in the state of Florida. 

The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit watchdog organization that rates hospitals and ASCs on how well they protect patients from preventable harm, including accidents, injuries and infections. The Leapfrog Top Hospital award is given to teaching, general, rural and children's hospitals that publicly report their performance through the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and meet the high standards defined in the Top Hospitals methodology. This includes infection rates and a hospital's ability to prevent medication errors, among other standards.

To qualify for the distinction, hospitals must rank top among peers on the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, which assesses hospital performance on the highest standards for quality and patient safety, and achieve top performance in their category. To see the full list of institutions honored as 2025 Top Hospitals, visit www.leapfroggroup.org/tophospitals.

About Nicklaus Children's, Where Your Child Matters Most ™
For 75 years, Nicklaus Children's has stood as a beacon of hope for children and families across the state of Florida and beyond. Nicklaus Children's Hospital is South Florida's #1 nonprofit, freestanding specialty licensed hospital exclusively for children serving close to 70 percent of children in the Miami metropolitan community. In addition, Nicklaus Children's offers care within NCH North Hospital in Naples, Jupiter Medical Center's De George Pediatric Unit and select Baptist Health Hospital pediatric emergency units. The hospital and its network of nearly 35 outpatient care locations offer lifesaving care in Miami-Dade, Broward, Martin and Palm Beach counties. These outpatient locations include an array of urgent care, pediatric primary care, and subspecialty care centers and are either hospital-based or outpatient locations under Nicklaus Children's Pediatric Specialists, LLC (NCPS). Providing a pipeline of future physicians and groundbreaking research, Nicklaus Children's is an academic and clinical affiliate of Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. Nicklaus Children's is home to centers of excellence including the Helen & Jacob Shaham Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute, the Nicklaus Children's Orthopedics, Sports Medicine and Spine Institute, Nicklaus Children's Neuroscience Institute and Nicklaus Children's Heart Institute. The 325-bed hospital is renowned for excellence in all aspects of pediatric medicine, with many programs routinely ranked among the nation's best by U.S. News & World Report since 2008. Nicklaus Children's also includes a nonprofit physician practice subsidiary with over 40 specialties, and an ambulatory surgery center. For more information visit nicklauschildrens.org.

About The Leapfrog Group
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is an independent national nonprofit organization celebrating 25 years of driving a movement for giant leaps for patient safety. Among its initiatives, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade was launched in 2012 and assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections. It is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospital prevention of medical errors and harm to patients. It is fully transparent and free to the public, and grades are updated biannually in the fall and in the spring. To look up your hospital's Safety Grade, please visit HospitalSafetyGrade.org. For more from Leapfrog, follow them on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, and sign up for their newsletter.

Contact:
Nathalie Medina, PR Specialist
Nicklaus Children's Health System
[email protected]

SOURCE Nicklaus Children's Hospital