24 NJ Hospitals Earn ‘A’ Grade In New Safety Ratings

NEW JERSEY — Hospitals in New Jersey and nationwide made significant improvements in preventing a “disturbing” increase in hospital infections during the coronavirus pandemic, The Leapfrog Group said with the release Monday of its Fall 2023 Hospital Safety Grades Report.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog group, used an academic grading scale with five letter grades to score nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents and infections. Overall, the report shows hospitals significantly reduced infections after the pandemic spike, but patient-reported experiences declined for the second year in a row.

Among 67 New Jersey hospitals evaluated in the report, 24 received the gold-standard “A” safety grade. Another 27 earned a “B,” 16 earned a “C” and zero hospitals earned a “D" or an "F."

New Jersey hospitals earning “A” grades are:

• Hackensack Meridian Hackensack University Medical Center
• Hunterdon Medical Center
• St. Mary's General Hospital
• Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center
• The Valley Hospital
• Morristown Medical Center
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Rahway
• Inspira Medical Center Vineland
• Virtua Voorhees Hospital
• Community Medical Center
• Englewood Hospital and Medical Center
• Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital (improved from a "B" in spring)
• Saint Clare's Hospital of Denville (improved from a "B" in spring)
• Overlook Medical Center
• Hackensack Meridian Ocean University Medical Center
• Jefferson Washington Township Hospital
• St. Luke's Warren Campus
• Inspira Medical Center Elmer
• Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center
• Atlanticare Regional Medical Center-Mainland Campus
• Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus
• Jefferson Stratford Hospital
• Virtua Marlton Hospital
• Inspira Medical Center Mullica Hill

The Leapfrog Group grades hospitals twice a year. In the fall report, the first report using post-pandemic data, 30 percent of hospitals nationwide earned an “A,” 24 percent earned a “B,” 39 percent earned a “C,” 7 percent earned a “D,” and fewer than 1 percent earned an “F.”

The 10 states with the highest number of “A” hospitals are Utah, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Connecticut, Montana, Tennessee, Florida and Texas. New Jersey ranked 13th overall.

States that had no “A” hospitals are Vermont, Wyoming, Delaware and North Dakota, as well as Washington, D.C.

More than 85 percent of hospitals saw decreases in the three most dangerous infections — MRSA, central-line bloodstream infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

• 19 percent improved in all three infection measures;
• 66 percent improved in at least one infection measure;
• 16 percent continued to worsen or did not improve.

“Now that we have pre- and post-pandemic data for patient safety measures, we are encouraged by the improvement in infections and applaud hospitals for reversing the disturbing infection spike we saw during the pandemic,” Leapfrog president and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release.

However, Binder said the continued decline in patient experiences is “deeply concerning.” Hospitals in all states have seen a significant decline in reported patient experiences since the fall of 2021, the report said.

Leapfrog says its hospital rating system is the only one in the country focusing solely on a hospital’s ability to protect patients from preventable errors.