New Jersey hospitals were given top grades by The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit organization that assesses quality and safety.

In the Spring 2020 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades, 30 Garden State facilities received A grades.

Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades are assigned to more than 2,600 general acute-care hospitals across the nation twice annually.

The Safety Grade use up to 28 national patient safety measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, and information from other supplemental data sources to produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

The Safety Grade methodology has been peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Patient Safety.

The Leapfrog Group calculated a numerical score for all eligible hospitals in the U.S. The numerical score was then converted into one of five letter grades.

“A” represents the best Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, followed in order by “B,” “C,” “D,” and “F.” The letter grade methodology first established in fall 2018 is being used this spring.

Numerical scores range between approximately 1.7 and 3.8, with an average score of approximately 3.0. The numerical cut- point for D and F grades is adjusted down by three standard errors.

Vice President of Administration Erica Mobley, said Leapfrog recognizes that national attention is focused on COVID-19 at this moment.

“While hospitals’ attention is best focused on providing critical, safe care at this time, patient safety must remain a priority, and we will continue to report on it. The spring 2020 grades reflect the most current information available about hospitals and their safety.”

Mobley said that patient safety can and should never take a back seat and poor performance on safety is not correlated to the pandemic.

The Spring 2020 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades are based on data collected prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. The reporting periods vary across the 28 measures, but all range between 2016 to 2019 – well before current circumstances became a factor.