PRINCETON — May 1, 2024 – Just over 80 percent of New Jersey hospitals earned A or B scores in the Leapfrog Group Hospital Safety Grades, a ranking created by a national nonprofit representing hundreds of the nation’s most influential employers and purchasers of health care. The grades reflect preventable medical errors, accidents, injuries, and infections that together kill more than 500 people a day in the United States.

The percentage of A and B New Jersey hospitals in the Spring 2024 survey was 81%, compared to 76% last fall. There were 30 A hospitals, or 45%, of the state’s acute care hospitals. That’s six more A hospitals than last round. “The number of A and B hospitals highlights that we are, overall, doing well as a state,” said Adelisa Perez-Hudgins, Director of Quality for the Quality Institute. “The percentage speaks to the dedication of hospitals and health care teams that focus on patient safety and quality improvement.” The Quality Institute is the Regional Leader in New Jersey and New York for Leapfrog.

“Consumers can and do use the Hospital Safety Grade to select the safest hospitals in their area,” said Linda Schwimmer, President and CEO of the Quality Institute. “And we know that transparent reporting on patient safety drives improvements in quality, saving lives and reducing preventable injuries.”

• Additional insight into the 67 New Jersey acute care hospitals that received a grade in the Spring 2024 Hospital Safety Grades shows:
• Thirteen hospitals went up a grade. Of these, two hospitals went up by two grades from a C to an A (Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton and Saint Michael’s Medical Center).
• Eleven hospitals went down a grade.
• One hospital received a D: CarePoint Health Christ Hospital.
• New Jersey ranked 3rd in the country for percentage of A hospitals, compared to 13th in the last round of fall 2023.

Two hospitals in New Jersey did not receive a score in accordance with Leapfrog policies. There was not have enough available data to grade Bergen New Bridge Medical Center. In addition, Inspira Medical Center Mannington was issued a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Certification Number, or CCN, after a recent merger. As a result, the facility is not eligible to receive a safety grade this round.

Leapfrog assigns a grade to nearly 3,000 general hospitals across the country on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents, and infections. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, patient experience nationwide has worsened. This spring survey shows the first sign of improvement with all measures related to patient experience significantly improving since fall 2023.
Additionally, since the fall of 2022, when hospital acquired infection rates were at their highest, ninety two percent of U.S. hospitals have improved performance on at least one of three dangerous preventable infections: Central line-associated bloodstream infections; Catheter-associated urinary tract infections; Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Leapfrog said while the results are promising, patient safety remains a crisis-level hazard in health care. Citing peer-reviewed research published in BMJ, Leapfrog said an estimated 250,000 people a year die of preventable errors and infections in hospitals, which makes patient safety problems the third leading cause of death in the United States.

For the first time, Leapfrog reported best patient safety performance by metropolitan area based on highest percentage of “A” hospitals. To define metropolitan areas, Leapfrog used core-based statistical areas (CBSAs) used by the U.S. Census and determined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Ranking first was the CBSA area of Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton PA-NJ.

Adelisa Perez-Hudgins and Linda Schwimmer thanked the New Jersey hospitals that participated in the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Survey, which is voluntary. New Jersey in recent years has had 100 percent or near 100 percent participation.

“We’re grateful to every hospital that participates in the volunteer survey,” Schwimmer said. “They deserve our thanks and appreciation for striving to provide the safest and highest quality health care.”