Area hospitals ranked

When Fallbrook Hospital closed in 2014, Fallbrook residents who had been served by a hospital in town for half a century found that they to go out of town for health care.

The closest hospitals to Fallbrook are in southwest Riverside County to the north or south along the state Route 78 corridor of north San Diego County. But how good is each of these hospitals?

The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit that represents health care purchasers such as employers, releases hospital safety grades annually. Each of more than 2,000 hospitals across the country are assigned a letter grade from A-F. These rankin...