Hospital Safety Grades 2023: How Ocean University Medical Center Fared

BRICK, NJ — The semiannual hospital safety grades have been released for the spring by The Leapfrog Group, and Ocean University Medical Center in Brick has received high marks.

The Leapfrog Group,an independent nonprofit health care watchdog, 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. The spring 2023 rankings cover late 2021 and 2022.

Ocean University Medical Center, part of the Hackensack Meridian group, was among 31 New Jersey hospitals to receive an A in the Spring 2023 hospital safety grades. There were 17 hospitals that received a B, and 11 hospitals received a C. No hospitals in New Jersey received a D or an F.

The grades track items such as health care-associated infections of MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus; central line-associated bloodstream infections; catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff. All of those infections can be deadly for some patients.

Ocean University Medical Center had received a B in the Fall 2022 report and had As for the five reports before that. The Spring 2023 report showed it had higher-than-expected rates of MRSA, C. diff and other health care-associated infections, but its rates were only slightly above the average with the exception of MRSA, and none were near the scores for the worst hospitals. Ocean University Medical Center received high marks on its procedures to prevent errors and infections.

Nearby, Community Medical Center in Toms River, Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood, Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune and Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch all received As, and Hackensack Meridian Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin received a B.

Michelle Rotuno-Johnson and Patch national staff contributed to this report.