Queens Hospital Earns NYC's Only 'F' In New Safety Report Card

FAR ROCKAWAY, QUEENS — A new hospital safety report card flunked one New York City facility: St. John's Episcopal Hospital in Queens.

The Far Rockaway hospital was the only one to get an "F" among healthcare providers in the five boroughs, according to Leapfrog's spring 2019 hospital safety grades report. St. John's received an "F" in fall 2018 and a "D" in Leapfrog's spring 2018 report.

Hospital spokeswoman Renee Hastick-Motes said the hospital's grade fell to an "F" in part because Leapfrog changed its report card methodology and added new criteria. St. John's began reporting information to Leapfrog in 2016, she added.

"St. John's has made tremendous changes over the last four years, as far as staff training, as well as renovations at the hospital and also expanding services across the peninsula," she said. "In the fall, we expect a better grade."

New York City hospitals, which historically have fared poorly with the experts who publish Leapfrog's reports, got mediocre grades across the board. One hospital earned an A grade, four earned a B grade, 24 earned a C grade, 15 earned a D grade and one earned an F grade.

The numbers show an increase in "B" hospitals and a decrease in "F" hospitals, compared to the national nonprofit's Fall 2018 rankings.

Leapfrog 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."

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.

Read more about the letter grades here.

Patch reporter Brendan Krisel contributed to this story. This story has been updated to add a statement from a hospital spokeswoman.