In the Spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades, released April 29, 26 Garden State facilities received A grades. New Jersey had 100 percent of general acute-care hospitals participate in the Leapfrog survey.

Ten hospitals moved up a grade and four hospitals moved down a grade. As a state, New Jersey moved up from No. 17 to No. 14 in the safety grade national ranking, which is based on the percentage of “A” grade hospitals.

Saint Barnabas Medical Center is the only New Jersey hospital,and just one of 27 hospitals in the nation, to have achieved straight A grades since the Leapfrog grading began in 2012. Also of note, East Orange General Hospital remained a D hospital and is the only hospital in the state that received a D. There were no F grades.

“Overall, New Jersey improved in our standing nationally in the number of A hospitals in our state,” said Linda Schwimmer, president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, the Regional Leader in New Jersey for Leapfrog. “We are also pleased to see the state-owned University Hospital improve its grade, which is now a C. We look forward to seeing that improvement continue.” In recent years, University Hospital has received Ds and Fs.

In New Jersey, all of the state’s 68 acute care hospitals received a grade. An analysis of the New Jersey data shows:

26 “A” hospitals – 38%, one more A than last round;
26 “B” hospitals – 38%, two more Bs than last round;
15 “C” hospitals – 22%, one fewer C than last round;
1 “D” hospital – 1%, two fewer Ds than last round; and
0 “F” hospitals – 0%, no change from last round.

A Grade

B Grade

C Grade

D Grade

East Orange General Hospital, East Orange

For the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, the calculations and grading remained consistent with the Fall 2020 methodology. Hospitals will submit a new round of data by August 2021, which will be used in the Fall 2021 calculations.

There will be some methodology changes in the 2021 survey. Leapfrog added two new sets of questions in 2021 to assess whether hospitals and surgery centers practice ethical billing and track and address disparities in care that affect patient care.

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses national performance measures to grade hospitals using a methodology developed with guidance from the foremost experts in patient safety.