NYC Hospital Safety Grades: The Mediocre, The Bad And The Ugly

NEW YORK, NY — It's that time of year again. Time to check out Leapfrog's biannual hospital safety grades list and realize that, despite being one of the most expensive and desirable cities in the world, New York City's hospitals are cesspools of disease and infection.

In a new batch of hospital safety rankings released by the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by employers and healthcare providers, only two of 43 New York City hospitals achieved higher than a "C" grade. That's two less hospitals than the Fall of 2017.

In total, one hospital earned a grade of "A," one hospitals earned a grade of "B," 26 got a grade of "C," 11 got a grade of "D" and four got a grade of "F."

This spring's failing-grade New York City hospitals are Interfaith Medical Center, Maimonides Medical Center and Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn and Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island.

Leapfrog looks at medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections when calculating its grades, according to the ranking methodology. The grades are calculated by "top patient safety experts" and are peer reviewed before release, according to Leapfrog.

The goal of the rankings is to determine a patient's risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital.

Look for your hospital's grade below, if you dare:

1. NYU Langone Medical Center (Manhattan): C
2. NYC Health + Hospitals - Bellevue (Manhattan): C
3. Mount Sinai West (Manhattan): C
4. Mount Sinai Beth Israel (Manhattan): D
5. New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center (Manhattan): C
6. Northwell Health System - Lenox Hill Hospital (Manhattan): C
7. New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan: C
8. The Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan): C
9. NYC Health + Hospitals - Metropolitan (Manhattan) : A
10. Mount Sinai (Queens): C
11. Mount Sinai St. Luke's (Manhattan): C
12. The Brooklyn Hospital Center (Brooklyn): B
13. NYC Health + Hospitals - Woodhull (Brooklyn): C
14. Wyckoff Heights Medical Center (Brookyln): C
15. NYC Health + Hospitals - Harlem (Manhattan): C
16. NYC Health + Hospitals - Elmhurst (Queens): D
17. New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital (Brooklyn): D
18. Interfaith Medical Center (Brooklyn): F
19. NYC Health + Hospitals - Lincoln (Bronx): C
20. New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia University Medical Center (Manhattan): C
21. NYC Health + Hospitals - Kings County (Brooklyn): D
22. Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center (Brooklyn): D
23. SUNY Downstate Medical Center University Hospital of Brooklyn: D
24. Lutheran Medical Center: C
25. Maimonides Medical Center (Brooklyn): F
26. Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital (Queens): C
27. Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center Concourse Campus (Bronx): C
28. Brookdale Hospital Medical Center (Brooklyn): F
29. New York-Presbyterian (Queens): C
30. St. Barnabas Hospital (Bronx): C
31. Flushing Hospital Medical Center (Queens): C
32. New York-Presbyterian The Allen Hospital (Manhattan): C
33. Mount Sinai (Brooklyn): D
34. Richmond University Medical Center (Staten Island): F
35. Jamaica Hospital Medical Center (Queens): C
36. NYC Health + Hospitals - Queens (Queens): C
37. Montefiore Einstein Campus (Bronx): C
38. NYC Health + Hospitals - Jacobi (Bronx): D
39. Montefiore Moses Campus (Bronx): C
40. Coney Island Hospital (Brooklyn): D
41. Montefiore Wakefield Campus (Bronx): C
42. Northwell Health System - Staten Island University Hospital (Staten Island): D
43. St. John's Episcopal Hospital (Queens): D

The poor rankings for New York City are consistent with the state as a whole. The state ranked 48th in the country with only 5.8 percent of its hospitals earning a grade of "A." The only states that performed worse than New York are Alaska, North Dakota and Delaware.

New York's performance is a contrast with the rest of the country, which saw improvements across the board this year. The Leapfrog Group found that hospitals overall have improved in reducing the number of avoidable deaths. The group assessed roughly 2,500 hospitals. Of those, 30 percent earned an “A,” 28 percent earned a “B,” 35 percent a “C,” 6 percent a “D” and 1 percent an “F.”

“The national numbers on death and harm in hospitals have alarmed us for decades. What we see in the new round of Safety Grades are signs of many hospitals making significant improvements in their patient safety record,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, said in a release.

The assessment system assigns school-style letter grades to general acute-care hospitals. The hope is to determine a patient’s risk of further injury or infection if they visit a certain hospital. Leapfrog says you shouldn’t refuse emergency care because of a bad safety grade. They’re meant to be used as a guide for planned events and a research tool for potential emergencies.

Patch reporters Dan Hampton and Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this report.

Photo credit:David McNew/Getty Images News/Getty Images