Jersey City Medical Center has received an “A” Hospital Safety Score from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit group measuring hospital safety and quality, for the 9th consecutive time.
Jersey City Medical, a RWJBarnabas Health facility, is one of only six hospitals (out of 67) in New Jersey – and the only one in Hudson County – to have received an A grade for safety each time. Only 153 hospitals nationally have earned straight “A” grades.
The hospital scores, ranging from “A” to “F,” were calculated under the guidance of a blue ribbon panel of experts using publicly available data on patient injuries, medical and medication errors, and infections. The scores are designed to give the public information they can use to protect themselves and their families when they need to visit a hospital.
More than 2,500 U.S. hospitals were assigned letter grades. Findings pointed to a 9 percent higher risk of avoidable death in “B” hospitals, 35 percent higher in “C” hospitals and 50 higher in “D” and “F” hospitals, than in “A” hospitals.
One-third of New Jersey hospitals dropped a grade or more in the latest national report card in terms of protecting patients from infections, bed sores and harmful errors during their stay. Several of the criteria changed from past years and Leapfrog started grading on a tougher curve, according to the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, a Leapfrog-affiliated organization.
“Safety is our first pillar and it truly takes a team effort from our doctors, nurses and hospital staff to achieve this top ranking,” said Joseph Scott, President and Chief Executive Officer of Jersey City Medical Center. “We’re extremely proud of our consistency of receiving the highest mark nine consecutive times. Less than five percent of hospitals in the country can point to this achievement.”
Leapfrog has said that the goal of its hospital safety report is to promote patient safety by providing information to consumers on how well hospitals are keeping patients safe from adverse events. Leapfrog commissioned a separate study that estimated that more than 33,000 lives could be saved nationally if all hospitals performed as safely as those hospitals that earned an “A.”