8 NYC hospitals earn poor grades for patient safety in new report card
Eight NYC hospitals earned a “D” for patient safety in a report card released Wednesday by a health care watchdog group.
The Leapfrog Group bestowed poor grades upon St. Barnabas Hospital and the Montefiore Medical Center Einstein and Moses campuses in The Bronx; NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull and Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn; St. John’s Episcopal Hospital-South Shore and Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens; and Staten Island University Hospital — North Campus.
Facilities are rated “A” through “F” based on how well they protect patients from preventable medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections.
NYU Langone hospitals in Manhattan and Brooklyn were the only ones in the city to earn an “A.” Northwell Health, which runs Staten Island University Hospital, has also steadily been rising in the rankings since it began participating in the patient safety report card in 2022.
In a statement, NYU Langone system pointed out that the high marks extend to Tisch Hospital and Kimmel Pavilion in Manhattan, NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island, and NYU Langone Hospital — Brooklyn.
“Thanks to the exceptional work of our dedicated and talented patient care teams, NYU Langone hospitals remain the safest places to receive care by any objective measure, as this recognition by Leapfrog shows,” said Dr. Robert I. Grossman, CEO of NYU Langone Health and dean of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
The Post reached out to each of the “D” city hospitals for comment.
Northwell Health defended its commitment to patient safety.
“Patient safety is paramount to the Northwell mission and we rely on a variety of metrics to ensure we are delivering quality care to every patient seeking treatment for injury or illness. We only started participating in Leapfrog in 2022 and some hospitals have progressed sooner in those ratings — including seven Northwell hospitals that received an A rating in this survey,” a rep for Staten Island University Hospital said in a statement to The Post.
“Staten Island University remains one of our safest hospitals, which is why it was given a four-star rating by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which uses a much higher number of criteria,” the statement continued.
The Leapfrog Group report card is released twice a year, with nearly 3,000 US hospitals graded.
New York placed 39th in the country with 11.8% of its hospitals earning an “A” — a slight improvement from the fall of 2023, when it was in 42nd place with 10.9% of its facilities receiving top honors.
Still, three hospitals in the state scored an “F” in the new report card — two are in Elmira, and one is in Buffalo.
In a statement, the Leapfrog Group noted that these ratings represent “the first sign of improvement with all measures significantly improving since fall 2023,” but patient experience has not rebounded to the levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Patient experience is very difficult to influence without delivering better care, so these findings are encouraging,” said Leah Binder, Leapfrog Group president and CEO. “We were also pleased to see the decrease in preventable infections, which cause terrible suffering and sometimes death. When we look at these positive trends, we see lives saved — and that is gratifying.”
