LONG ISLAND — Stony Brook Southampton Hospitals is one of 10 on Long Island with top safety scores in The Leapfrog Group's spring 2024 safety scores released Wednesday.
Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has earned an “A” hospital safety rating from the Leapfrog Group, a national, independent, nonprofit watchdog.
“Receiving an 'A' hospital safety rating from the Leapfrog Group is a testament to our unwavering commitment to patient safety and quality care,” said William A. Wertheim, interim executive vice president of Stony Brook Medicine. “This achievement is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our outstanding staff, whose tireless efforts make a profound difference in the lives of those we serve and inspire us to continually raise the bar for healthcare excellence in our community and beyond. from her.”
“We are honored to earn the nation's top honor for patient safety, an 'A' from the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade,” said Fredric Weinbaum, interim CAO. “That 'A' grade belongs to each and every one of our team members, who work 24/7 to ensure the safety of our patients.”
“Everyone who works at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital should be proud of this 'A' hospital safety rating,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “It takes total dedication at every level and an unwavering commitment to patients first. I thank Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, its leadership, clinicians, staff and volunteers who care so deeply about their patients and their safety.”
On Long Island, the hospitals that received the top “A” rating were:
- Plainview Hospital, at 888 Old Country Road, Plainview
- South Shore University Hospital, at 301 E. Main St., Bay Shore
- Huntington Hospital, at 270 Park Ave., Huntington
- NYU Langone Hospital – Long Island, at 259 1st St., Mineola
- St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center, at 100 Port Washington Blvd., Roslyn
- Glen Cove Hospital, at 101 St. Andrews Lane, Glen Cove
- Mather Hospital, at 75 N. Country Road, Port Jefferson
- Hospital St. Charles, at 200 Belle Terre Road, Port Jefferson
- Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, at 240 Meeting House Lane, Southampton
- Peconic Bay Medical Center, at 1 Heroes Way, Riverhead
Long Island hospitals earning “B” grades are:
- Syosset Hospital, at 221 Jericho Turnpike, Syosset
- Hospital St. Catherine of Siena, at 50 Route 25A, Smithtown
- Stony Brook University Hospital, at the Health Science Center, SUNY Stony Brook
- Long Island Jewish Medical Center, at 270-05 76th Ave., New Hyde Park
Long Island hospitals earning “C” grades are:
- Hospital St. Joseph, at 4295 Hempstead Turnpike, Bethpage
- North Shore University Hospital, at 300 Community Drive, Manhasset
- Mercy Hospital, at 1000 N. Village Ave., Rockville Center
- Mount Sinai South Nassau, at 1 Healthy Way, Oceanside
- Long Island Jewish Valley Stream, at 900 Franklin Ave., Valley Stream
- Long Island Community Health Hospital at NYU Langone Health, at 101 Hospital Road, Patchogue
- Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital, at 201 Manor Place, Greenport
Long Island hospitals earning “D” grades are:
- Nassau University Medical Center, at 2201 Hempstead Turnpike, East Meadow
- Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, at 1000 Montauk Highway, West Islip
Zero Long Island Hospitals earned an “F” grade.
The Leapfrog Group, which rates hospitals twice a year, also ranked the 10 states with the highest number of “A” hospitals. Utah tops the list, followed by Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Alaska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina and Maine, respectively.
For the first time this spring, the Guardian ranked the top 25 statistical reporting metropolitan areas according to the number of “A” hospitals. The top three metro areas are Allentown, Pennsylvania; Winston-Salem, North Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Nationally, hospitals showed improvements over their fall 2023 performance in both reducing hospital-acquired infections and improving patient experiences, the report said.
Hospital-acquired infections and preventable errors kill about 250,000 people a year in the United States, making patient safety problems the third leading cause of death in the country, according to a research summary published in the global health journal BMJ.
Hospital-acquired infections soared to levels not seen since 2016. Since then, 92 percent of hospitals showed improved performance in at least one of the three dangerous infections, the report said.
Central line-related bloodstream infections decreased by 34 percent, and catheter-related urinary tract infections and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections decreased by 30 percent.
Despite improvements, “patient safety remains a crisis-level risk in healthcare,” Leapfrog Group president and CEO Leah Binder said in a press release.
“Some hospitals are much better than others at keeping patients safe from harm, which is why we're making the Hospital Safety Grade available to the public and encouraging all hospitals to focus more on safety,” Binder said.
Patient experiences have worsened since the pandemic, and while the spring report shows an improvement, patients are not reporting the same level of confidence they had before the pandemic, according to the report.
Patient experience is measured through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to publicly report how hospital patients rate the care they received.
The five measures are nurse communication, physician communication, hospital staff responsiveness, medication communication, and discharge information.
“The patient experience is very difficult to impact without providing better care, so these findings are encouraging,” Binder said. “We are also pleased to see a reduction in preventable infections, which cause terrible pain and sometimes death. When we look at these positive trends, we see lives being saved — and that's gratifying.”
