Hackensack Meridian Health Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune and Ocean Medical Center in Brick were awarded ‘A’s from The Leapfrog Group’s fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Guide. The designation recognizes hospitals for efforts to protect patients from harm and provide safer health care.
“Our shared commitment to providing the highest quality health care and patient safety is essential to our mission to transform health care and serve as a leader of positive change,” said Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, CEO, Hackensack Meridian Health. “I want to congratulate our team members for achieving ‘A’ grades for the exceptional care they provide every day. Our patients, their families, and the communities we serve are the beneficiaries of this level of dedication.”
The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit organization, is committed to improving health care quality and safety for consumers and purchasers. The Safety Grade assigns an ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘F’ grade to hospitals nationwide based on performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections, and other harm to patients in their care.
“Working in collaborative groups, we implement a system-wide infrastructure for measuring, reporting, and ensuring quality through a single quality scorecard that reports hospital-level data and examines real-time performance metrics,” said Carol Barsky, M.D., MBA, executive vice president and chief quality officer, Hackensack Meridian Health. “We remain committed to improving the quality of patient care, patient safety and patient experience.”
Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.
“Providing our patients safe, high-quality care and a welcoming experience is the ultimate objective of all our team members,” said Kenneth N. Sable, M.D., MBA, FACEP, regional president, southern market, Hackensack Meridian Health. “The communities that Jersey Shore University Medical Center and Ocean Medical Center serve should rest assured our teams will continue to focus on providing exceptional, safe health care.”
The following Hackensack Meridian Health hospitals also received ‘A’ grades: Pascack Valley Medical Center, Westwood; Raritan Bay Medical Center, Perth Amboy; and Riverview Medical Center, Red Bank.