Jersey City Medical Center and Christ Hospital Graded for Safety

Jersey City Medical Center and CarePoint Health-Christ Hospital merit passing grades for safety according to the rating organization Leapfrog.

Leapfrog grades close to 3,000 hospitals across the nation twice annually and utilizes 30 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and information from other supplemental data sources.  It relies upon the help of an expert panel of physicians affiliated with Harvard University, Stanford University and the Center for Disease Control, among others.

According to its website, “the goal of the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is to reduce the over 200,000 yearly deaths from hospital errors and injuries by publicly recognizing safety and exposing harm.”

Using its methodology, Leapfrog gave Jersey City Medical Center a B overall. CarePoint Health-Christ Hospital garnered a grade of C.

While besting such well known hospitals as NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan, JCMC came under criticism in a few key areas. Communication with doctors and nurses and around medicines and discharge were cited as problem areas.  On the other hand, with the exception of “Death from serious treatable complications,” the hospital scored well when it came to “problems with surgery.”

CarePoint Health-Christ Hospital was also cited for poor communications and did poorly on bed sores and MRSA infections.  The hospital scored above average in the problems with surgery category. However, there was not data available on “death from serious treatable complications.”

Leapfrog’s ratings have, at times, courted controversy. In 2017, Saint Anthony Hospital in Chicago has filed a lawsuit against Leapfrog to dispute its grade.  A 2017 study, claimed that Leapfrog penalized hospitals for transparency.