NYC Hospital Safety Grades: Mediocrity Edition

NEW YORK, NY — New York City hospitals are taking the mantra "Cs get degrees" a little too literally. Healthcare provides in all five boroughs once again performed poorly in Leapfrog's Fall 2018 ratings for hospital safety.

More than 50 percent of 44 New York City facilities graded earned a C grade and only three facilities managed a B or an A. The rankings are nearly identical to the lackluster showing from Leapfrog's spring list.

In total: Two hospitals earned an A grade, one earned a B grade, 26 earned a C grade, 11 earned a D grade and four earned an F grade.

The Leapfrog Group explains that its rating system is focused entirely on errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.

New York City's poor performance didn't drag the statewide rankings down too much. New York State managed to avoid being one of the states with the lowest percentage of A graded hospitals, due in part to the fact that states sch as Delaware and North Dakota didn't earn a single A. New Jersey, Oregon, Virginia, Massachusetts and Texas had the highest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade. The states with the lowest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade are Connecticut, Nebraska, Washington D.C., Delaware and North Dakota, according to Leapfrog.

Here are the grades New York City hospitals were given by the Leapfrog Group:

1. NYU Langone Medical Center (Manhattan): C
2. NYC Health + Hospitals - Bellevue (Manhattan): D
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): D
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): A
13. NYC Health + Hospitals - Woodhull (Brooklyn): C
14. Wyckoff Heights Medical Center (Brookyln): D
15. NYC Health + Hospitals - Harlem (Manhattan): C
16. NYC Health + Hospitals - Elmhurst (Queens): F
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): C
23. SUNY Downstate Medical Center University Hospital of Brooklyn: D
24. NYU Langone Hospital - Brooklyn: C
25. Maimonides Medical Center (Brooklyn): F
26. Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital (Queens): C
27. BronxCare Health System (Bronx): C
28. Brookdale Hospital Medical Center (Brooklyn): D
29. New York-Presbyterian (Queens): B
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. New York Community Hospital: C
35. Richmond University Medical Center (Staten Island): C
36. Jamaica Hospital Medical Center (Queens): C
37. NYC Health + Hospitals - Queens (Queens): C
38. Montefiore Einstein Campus (Bronx): C
39. NYC Health + Hospitals - Jacobi (Bronx): C
40. Montefiore Moses Campus (Bronx): C
41. Coney Island Hospital (Brooklyn): D
42. Montefiore Wakefield Campus (Bronx): C
43. Northwell Health System - Staten Island University Hospital (Staten Island): D
44. St. John's Episcopal Hospital (Queens): F

“Health care was an important issue in the 2018 midterm elections, yet both parties are still neglecting the third leading cause of death in America—errors and infections in hospitals,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a press release. “Every elected official, from city councilors, to senators, to the President, should hold hospitals accountable and support efforts to improve patient safety.”

Leapfrog assigns A,B,C,D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes 28 measures that are taken together to “produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.” The group uses performance measures from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

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