Hudson Valley Hospital Safety Grades 2021: The Best, The Worst

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Several Hudson Valley hospitals received top safety marks while others didn’t quite measure up in The Leapfrog Group’s annual spring safety grades released Thursday.

The nonprofit health care watchdog group grades hospitals twice a year, assigning letter grades from “A” to “F” based on each hospital's ability to protect patients from preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections.

More than 2,700 general, acute-care U.S. hospitals were assessed for Leapfrog’s Spring Safety Grades. Among those hospitals, 27 have achieved 19 consecutive “A” grades in every biannual grading cycle since Leapfrog launched the safety grades in spring 2012.

In the Hudson Valley (click through to see the data):

• Bon Secours Community Hospital, Port Jervis, received an A.
• Northern Dutchess Hospital, Rhinebeck, received an A.
• Putnam Hospital Center, Carmel, received an A.
• St. Anthony Community Hospital, Warwick, received an A.
• White Plains Hospital, White Plains, received an A.
• Montefiore Nyack Hospital, Nyack, received a B.
• Garnet Health Medical Center, Middletown, received a C.
• Garnet Health Medical Center-Catskills, Harris, received a C.
• Good Samaritan Hospital, Suffern, received a C.
• HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley - Broadway Campus, Kingston, received a C.
• Montefiore St. Luke's Cornwall, Newburgh, received a C.
• New York-Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital, Cortlandt Manor, received a C.
• New York-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital, Bronxville, received a C.
• Northern Westchester Hospital, Mount Kisco, received a C.
• Phelps Hospital, Sleepy Hollow, received a C.
• St John's Riverside Hospital, Yonkers received a C.
• St John's Riverside Hospital - ParkCare Pavilion, Yonkers, received a C.
• St John's Riverside Hospital - Dobbs Ferry Pavilion, Dobbs Ferry received a C.
• St. Joseph's Medical Center of Yonkers, Yonkers, received a C.
• Vassar Brothers Medical Center, Poughkeepsie, received a C.
• Columbia Memorial Hospital, Hudson, received a D.
• MidHudson Regional Hospital of Westchester Medical Center, Poughkeepsie, received a D.
• Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital, New Rochelle, received a D.
• Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, received a D.

A spokesman for the Westchester Medical Center Network, of which Westchester Medical Center and MidHudson Regional Hospital of Westchester Medical Center are a part, released a statement that said a major challenge of all of these grading systems is that they do not adjust for severity of illness.

"As the only quaternary medical center in the Hudson Valley, Westchester Medical Center receives all of the region’s complex cases that require the highest level of care, and accepts more than 9,000 patient transfers each year," the statement said. "We achieve excellent outcomes of care when compared on a case-by-case basis to other academic medical centers in the metropolitan area."

Patch emailed representatives of Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital and Columbia Memorial Hospital about their "D" grades. No responses were immediately received. Patch will update the article when responses are received.

It’s worth noting the hospitals were graded during a time of extraordinary pressure on the health care system due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This pandemic emphasized how much we rely on America’s health care workforce,” Leapfrog Group President and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release. “Our straight ‘A’ hospitals remind us how preparedness protected their patients as well as their workforce and created a high level of organizational resilience.”

Across all states, highlights of findings from the spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade include:

• Thirty-three percent of hospitals received an "A," 24 percent received a "B," 35 percent received a "C," 7 percent received a "D," and less than 1 percent received an "F."
• Five states with the highest percentages of "A" hospitals are Massachusetts, Idaho, Maine, Virginia, and North Carolina.
• There were no "A" hospitals in South Dakota or North Dakota.

To determine each state’s grade, Leapfrog used up to 28 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and information from other supplemental data sources. When averaged, performance measures produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

The goal of the Hospital Safety Grade is to reduce deaths caused by hospital errors and injuries.

Leapfrog estimates that if the risk at all hospitals was equivalent to what it is at "A" hospitals, 50,000 lives at other facilities would have been saved. Overall, the researchers estimate that 160,000 lives are lost every year due to avoidable medical errors. That figure is down from 2016, when the Leapfrog Group estimated there were 205,000 avoidable deaths.

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is peer-reviewed by a panel of national experts, and the Leapfrog Group receives guidance from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.