Hospital Safety: How Southern Ocean Medical Center Ranks

MANAHAWKIN, NJ — The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit healthcare watchdog group, has released its Fall 2022 Hospital Safety Grades report on Wednesday, showing how New Jersey hospitals have improved or worsened when it comes to safety.

The group uses an academic grading scale with five letter grades to score nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide on more than 30 measures of patient safety. 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.

In New Jersey, 33 hospitals received an A, 20 hospitals received a B, 14 hospitals received a C and 3 hospitals received a D grade. Zero hospitals received an F. Read More: NJ Safest Hospitals: Latest Ratings Released For Fall

Leapfrog gave Hackensack Meridian Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin its sixth consecutive "C" ranking. It last ranked higher in fall 2019 when it was given a "B" and before that in spring 2019 it ranked "A."

Overall, the hospital ranked average in all aspects, evenly falling either below average or above average in the categories.

The hospital ranked below average when it came to MRSA infections, infections in the blood and surgical site infections after colon surgery, but above average in C. diff infections, infections in the urinary tract and sepsis infections after surgery.

Southern Ocean Medical Center ranked above average in most aspects of problems with surgery, except for blood leakage and kidney injury after surgery, where it fell below average.

It had some safety issues, falling below average in harmful events, dangerous bed sores and patient falls and injuries.

The hospital ranks highly in practices to prevent errors, except when it comes to communication about medicines and discharge.

The doctors, nurses and hospital staff also rank highly, again except in terms of communication with doctors and nurses. It ranks average in responsiveness of hospital staff.

You can see Southern Ocean Medical Center's full results here.

This article contains additional reporting by Alexis Tarrazi.