Major South Jersey Hospital Graded 'C' For Patient Safety In New Ratings

Editor's note: This article now has a statement from a Cooper Health spokesperson that Patch received after initial publishing.

CAMDEN, NJ — One of South Jersey's largest hospitals is far from being the region's safest, according to new ratings.

The Leapfrog Group's Fall 2025 Hospital Safety Grades, released Thursday, graded all general hospitals in the United States on their ability to protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The watchdog group assigns letter grades to hospitals in biannual reports.

Almost all hospitals in inland South Jersey received an "A" or a "B." Some even got a "Straight A," reflecting hospitals that earned an "A" for more than two consecutive years.

The lone exception was Cooper University Hospital in Camden, graded "C."

Leapfrog rated Cooper Hospital "worse than average" across several categories of patient safety, including death from serious treatable surgical complications, kidney failure after surgery, and sepsis infection after surgery.

But Leapfrog also found Cooper Hospital's performed "better than average" when it came to staff collaboration and implementing certain practices to prevent errors, including hand-washing and safe medication administering. Cooper also scored above-average for ICU care, nursing and bedside care.

But Cooper University Hospital has received a "C" in Leapfrog's last four marking periods, going back to spring 2024. Leapfrog gave the hospital a "B" in fall 2023 and an "A" in the prior spring.

Cooper Health spokesperson Wendy Marano emailed the following statement to Patch:

"Patient safety and quality care are top priorities for Cooper University Health Care as evidenced by numerous national recognitions, including its rating as the top hospital in southern New Jersey and among the top 10 in New Jersey in U.S. News & World Report 2026 rankings. Leapfrog’s current grades, however, are based upon CMS data some of which dates to the pandemic in 2021.

As a leading academic health system and Level 1 Trauma Center, Cooper’s specialists handle the most complex and critically ill patients. Leapfrog’s methodology fails to account for the socioeconomic and acuity differences between patients treated by academic tertiary hospitals versus community hospitals. For this reason, Cooper, and other academic health systems, generally receive lower Leapfrog grades than neighboring community hospitals."

Here's how Leapfrog graded other local hospitals:

• Inspira Medical Center Elmer: Straight A
• Jefferson Washington Township Hospital: Straight A
• Virtua Marlton Hospital: Straight A
• Virtua Voorhees Hospital: Straight A
• Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital: A
• Inspira Medical Center Mannington: B
• Jefferson Stratford Hospital: B
• Virtua Mount Holly Hospital: B
• Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital: B
• Virtua Willingboro Hospital: B

Leapfrog grades hospitals by examining up to 30 national patient safety measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and other data sources. Their methodology has been peer-reviewed, according to Leapfrog.

Visit Leapfrog's website for the latest hospital safety grades.