12 Long Island hospitals get A grades for patient safety, nonprofit's report shows

Twelve Long Island hospitals scored A grades on a patient safety report that examines health facilities’ abilities to prevent medical errors, accidents and infections.

The Leapfrog Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that releases the reports in the spring and fall annually, recently evaluated more than 3,000 hospitals nationwide, assigning grades of A, B, C, D or F. 

Of the 23 hospitals graded on Long Island, none scored below a C, and the number that received B or higher has grown from 14 to 18 since last spring.

Those receiving A's in fall included seven Northwell Health facilities, including Glen Cove Hospital, Huntington Hospital, Plainview Hospital, South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore and Syosset Hospital. New Hyde Park-headquartered Northwell Health is the region’s largest health system.

Also receiving A's were Catholic Health’s St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson, St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center in Roslyn, NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island in Mineola, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and Stony Brook University Hospital. Stony Brook University Hospital had received B's in its last three report cards, said Dr. Eric Morley, chief quality officer at Stony Brook Medicine.

"So, this achieving an A was a culmination of a lot of hard work by the teams to sort of put in place everything we need to have in place to achieve that safe care,” he said. 

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade began in 2012. The purpose of the program is to better patient outcomes by helping hospitals make quality improvements, said Katie Burggraf Stewart, director of health care ratings at Leapfrog, which was founded in 2000.

“We want consumers to have information they need to make decisions about where they receive care. The program really highlights that there is a difference in the safety offerings at hospitals,” she said.

Leapfrog’s reports serve a dual purpose of alerting consumers about hospitals’ safety records and also holding hospital executives and staff accountable for maintaining “a culture of safety,” said Patricia Kelmar, senior director of health care campaigns for U.S. PIRG, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in Denver, Colorado.

If you’re undergoing treatment, Kelmar said, “you want to know that that hospital is doing its utmost to prevent infections, that they are watching for signs of sepsis, that they have hand washing protocols,” among other safety measures.

Patients should “ask their physicians or local hospital staff any questions they have about their hospital’s Leapfrog grade or quality improvement initiatives,” said Janae Quackenbush, a spokeswoman for the Healthcare Association of New York State, a hospital industry trade group. Hospitals also receive quality and safety ratings from U.S. News & World Report, Healthgrades and other private groups, as well as the federal government's Care Compare website.    

Leapfrog evaluates hospitals on more than 30 measures, including rates of preventable errors, injuries and infections, as well as systems in place to prevent them, such as having proper staffing in intensive care units and computerized physician ordering systems to prevent medication errors, Stewart said.

To assess hospital safety, Leapfrog uses publicly available information, including data that hospitals submit to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for reimbursements, she said. The nonprofit also uses surveys that hospitals complete voluntarily.

Leapfrog assigns grades to hospitals regardless of whether they decline to participate in the surveys, Stewart said.

The share of hospitals receiving A's is improving, and is higher now than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. In fall 2024, 32% of hospitals received A's, up from 29% in fall 2022, she said. 

North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset received a B in the fall and C in the spring of 2024.

Long Island Community Hospital at NYU Langone Health in Patchogue received a C in the fall and spring of 2024.

The hospital is an affiliate of NYU Langone that will merge with the health system next year, LICH spokesman James Iorio said in a statement Thursday.

“Over the past year, the hospital has made great strides improving the quality of care, substantially reducing length of stay and infection rates, as just a few examples. As it prepares to merge with NYU Langone Health next year, LICH is committed to further improving patient outcomes,” he said.

Catholic Health’s Mercy Hospital in Rockville Centre received a C in both the fall and spring of 2024, and its Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip received a C in the fall, an improvement from a D in the spring.

“Significant progress has already been made since the survey was conducted," Lisa Greiner, spokeswoman for Rockville Centre-based Catholic Health, said in a statement.