A quarter of hospitals in New York earned high scores for preventing patient infections, reducing falls and increasing staffing at their facilities, a report out today from the Leapfrog Group shows.
Thirty-six of the 144 hospitals graded across the state received an A for patient safety, according to Leapfrog, a Washington, D.C.-based patient safety nonprofit that grades hospitals based on 30 metrics, including preventable infections and injuries. Hospitals that earn an A are considered safer for patients due to low rates of medical errors and hospital-acquired infections, which are responsible for 250,000 patient deaths across the U.S. each year, the organization says.
The percentage of A-rated hospitals in New York has steadily increased in recent years, pointing to lower rates of infections and better patient experience after the pandemic. New York ranked 31st out of all U.S. states for its percentage of hospitals with high marks, improving its position from 39th place during the same time last year.
“There’s less mistakes happening at hospitals in New York,” said Alex Campione, project analyst at the Leapfrog Group, adding that four more hospitals earned an A compared to last fall. But there is still a long way to go; New York has a far lower percentage of top-rated hospitals compared to neighboring New Jersey, where 55% of hospitals earned an A for patient safety, Campione said.
Hospitals within major city health systems earned high patient safety grades. NYU Langone’s main campus in Midtown got top marks, along with NYU Langone Hospital – Long Island in Nassau County and NYU Langone Hospital – Brooklyn in Sunset Park. All three hospitals maintained As for five rounds in a row, or about two years, Leapfrog’s data shows.
Several of New York-Presbyterian’s hospitals also earned As, including Columbia Irving Medical Center, Allen Hospital, Lower Manhattan Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center, Brooklyn Methodist, Queens Hospital and Westchester, according to the data.
Northwell hospitals including Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side and South Shore University Hospital in Suffolk County received A grades, with the Long Island hospital earning the top mark for five rounds in a row. Other Northwell facilities that received As include Huntington Hospital, Glen Cove Hospital, Mather Hospital, Phelps Hospital, Syosset Hospital and Plainview Hospital.
St. Francis Hospital and Heart Center, St. Charles Hospital and St. Catherine of Siena – all of which are a part of Catholic Health on Long Island – received A grades, as well as Montefiore’s Mount Vernon Hospital and White Plains Hospital in the Hudson Valley.
Some local hospitals received poor grades, including public hospitals Jacobi Medical Center, Woodhull Hospital and Kings County Hospital, which received Ds. Brooklyn safety-net facilities, including Brookdale Hospital and Interfaith Medical Center. Maimonides Midwood Community Hospital and St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx also received D grades, the data shows.
The Leapfrog Group, founded in 2000 by large employers and other health care payers, publishes rankings twice a year based on rates of medical errors, injuries and infections at U.S. hospitals.
