Hospital Safety Ratings – Three Bs and One C

COURT HOUSE – The fall 2022 hospital safety ratings from Leapfrog are out. Area hospitals fared well with the exception of Shore Medical Center which received its third C grade in a row after a long period of A and B grades. Cape Regional Medical Center in Court House maintained the B grade it has held since 2020. Both AtlantiCare hospitals received a B rating.
Leapfrog is an employer-founded organization that focuses on hospital safety. It produces a semiannual report that gives an overall rating to hospitals across the country, covering over 30 separate measures of hospital safety. These measures include problems following surgery, in-patient infections, falls, blood clots and more. The details for any hospital in the state are available as part of the full report. 
As a state in Fall 2022, New Jersey had 70 acute care hospitals reviewed, with 33 A grades, 20 B grades, 14 C grades, 3 D grades and no Fs. New Jersey is among the top states in the country for the percentage of A grades among its hospitals. 
The Leapfrog safety rating system is the most highly regarded program based exclusively on hospital prevention of medical errors and harm. It deals with how hospitals protect their patients from errors, accidents and infections. The organization reports that 1 in every 25 hospital patients develops an infection while in the hospital and over 200,000 people die every year from preventable errors, accidents and infections.