New Jersey Hospital Grades 2019: See How Your Hospital Scored

Thirty-one New Jersey hospitals received an A grade in hospital safety, according to new Spring 2019 ratings released by the Leapfrog Group on Wednesday. Others didn't fare so well, and you may be surprised to see who received a poor grade (see list below).

The nonprofit group found that of the more than 2,600 hospitals graded in the country, 32 percent earned an A grade, findings that were unchanged from the group’s last round of rankings released in Fall 2018.

The Leapfrog Group explains that its rating system is focused entirely on errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.

Oregon, Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts and Utah had the highest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade. Four states — Wyoming, Arkansas, Delaware, North Dakota — and the District of Columbia did not have a single hospital that received an A grade.

For this round of rankings, the Leapfrog Group’s research found that patients at hospitals that receive “D” or “F” grades face a 92 percent greater risk of avoidable death compared to “A” hospitals. At “C” and “B” hospitals, patients on average face an 88 percent and a 35 percent greater risk respectively.

The group estimates that if the risk at all hospitals was equivalent to what it is at “A” hospitals, 50,000 lives would have been saved. Overall, the researchers estimate that 160,000 lives are lost every year due to avoidable medical errors. That figure is down from 2016, when the Leapfrog Group estimated there were 205,000 avoidable deaths.

“The good news is that tens of thousands of lives have been saved because of progress on patient safety. The bad news is that there’s still a lot of needless death and harm in American hospitals,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of the Leapfrog Group, said in a press release. “Hospitals don’t all have the same track record, so it really matters which hospital people choose, which is the purpose of our Hospital Safety Grade.”

Leapfrog assigns A,B,C,D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes 28 measures that are taken together to “produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.” The group uses performance measures from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

Here are New Jersey's grades:

A

• Bayshore Medical Center, Holmdel
• Capital Health Medical Center - Hopewell, Pennington
• CarePoint Health-Bayonne Medical Center, Bayonne
• Chilton Medical Center, Pompton Plains
• Clara Maass Medical Center, Belleville
• Community Medical Center of Toms River, Toms River
• Inspira Medical Center Elmer, Elmer
• Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital, Cherry Hill
• Jefferson Stratford Hospital, Stratford
• Jersey City Medical Center, Jersey City, NJ 07302
• Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune
• Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch
• Morristown Medical Center, Morristown
• Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Newark
• Newton Medical Center, Newton
• Ocean Medical Center, Brick
• Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, Camden
• Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center, Plainsboro
• Raritan Bay Medical Center of Perth Amboy, Perth Amboy
• Riverview Medical Center, Red Bank
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital at Hamilton, Hamilton
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset, Somerville, NJ 08876-2598
• Saint Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston
• Saint Clare's Hospital of Denville, Denville
• Saint Clare's Hospital of Dover, Dover
• Saint Michael's Medical Center, Newark
• Saint Peter's University Hospital, New Brunswick
• Shore Medical Center, Somers Point
• Southern Ocean Medical Center, Manahawkin
• St. Luke's Warren Campus, Phillipsburg
• The Valley Hospital, Ridgewood

B

• Atlanticare Regional Medical Center - City Campus, Atlantic City
• Atlanticare Regional Medical Center-Mainland Campus, Pomona
• Cape Regional Medical Center, Cape May Court House
• CarePoint Health-Christ Hospital, Jersey City
• Carepoint Health-Hoboken University Medical Center, Hoboken
• CentraState Medical Center, Freehold
• Cooper University Hospital, Camden
• Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, Englewood
• Hackensack Meridian Health Palisades Medical Center, North Bergen
• Hackensack Meridian Health Pascack Valley Medical Center, Westwood
• Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack
• Hackettstown Regional Medical Center, Hackettstown
• Holy Name Medical Center, Teaneck
• Inspira Medical Center Vineland, Vineland
• Inspira Medical Center Woodbury, Woodbury
• Jefferson Washington Township Hospital, Turnersville
• JFK Medical Center, Edison
• Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County, Willingboro
• Overlook Medical Center, Summit
• Raritan Bay Medical Center of Old Bridge, Old Bridge
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Rahway, Rahway
• St. Francis Medical Center of Trenton, Trenton
• St. Joseph's University Medical Center, Paterson
• St. Mary's General Hospital, Passaic
• Virtua Marlton Hospital, Marlton
• Virtua Voorhees Hospital, Voorhees

C

• Capital Health Regional Medical Center, Trenton
• Hudson Regional Hospital, Secaucus
• Hunterdon Medical Center, Flemington
• Salem Medical Center, Salem
• St. Joseph's Wayne Medical Center, Wayne
• Trinitas Regional Medical Center, Elizabeth
• Virtua Memorial Hospital, Mount Holly

D

• East Orange General Hospital, East Orange
• Hackensack Meridian Health Mountainside Medical Center, Montclair
• University Hospital, Newark