Patient safety hospital rankings: Northwell tops list of 11 LI hospitals to receive 'A' grades

Eleven hospitals on Long Island have received a top grade of A for patient safety in a national ranking of thousands of health care providers, a new report shows.

The Leapfrog Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that seeks to improve health care quality through hospital ranking reports rated 23 Long Island hospitals for safety in the fall report. Seven of the 11 hospitals that received As were Northwell Health affiliated.

Leapfrog releases report cards on patient safety twice a year — once in the spring and again in the fall — for nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide.

"Quality has always been the primary focus at Northwell," said Dr. Peter Silver, senior vice president and chief quality officer at Northwell. "There are many specific factors but overall the most important is the culture of the institution, the culture of the leadership and the members of the health care teams."

The New Hyde Park-based health system, the largest private employer in New York State, had a total of 15 hospitals throughout the Island and state receive an A grade for safety.

The Northwell hospitals to receive an A grade are Glen Cove Hospital, Huntington Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson, Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, Plainview Hospital and South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore.

Institutions that also scored As include three Catholic Health hospitals, St. Catherine of Siena Hospital in Smithtown, St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson and St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center in Roslyn; and NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island in Mineola.

Stony Brook Medicine’s Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport received the only D grade in the fall rankings on the Island. The health system’s Stony Brook Southampton Hospital fell to a C grade after previously receiving three consecutive As in Leapfrog’s twice a year report card.

Leapfrog’s rankings did not address why hospitals received their grades. Metrics used in the ranking include nurse and doctor communication, ICU physician staffing levels total hours of nursing care among patients.

"The current grades reflect data from 2021-2024, significantly influencing the letter ratings for all three [Stony Brook] hospitals," officials with Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital said in a statement. "Since that period, we have implemented substantial patient safety improvements, and these efforts continue to advance."

Last week, Stony Brook hospitals took home top rankings for their specialty care treatments by online health care ranking group Healthgrades.

Hospital officials added that it is committed to working to "align our systems and policies" with Leapfrog’s metrics. "This one survey does not reflect the quality of care provided by our exceptional staff," officials there said.

Leapfrog program manager Alex Campione said that safety grades for Leapfrog consider 22 different metrics and include data on infections from the Centers for Disease control and claims data from Medicare, in addition to hospital surveys that are weighted differently by the organization. Available data sources can sometimes lag, she said. 

Campione said it’s important for patients to be aware of rankings like these when in the position to pick and choose hospitals.

"Safety should be at the top of everyone’s priority list," Campione said. "Preventable medical errors are quite common in the health care setting."

But observers of Long Island’s hospital ecosystem said it’s important for patients to understand that rankings from one organization are not the only factor to consider when comparing institutions.

"Every hospital is continually engaged in performance improvement and working to improve their qualify, wherever they fall on these many, many rating scales that are out there," said Wendy Darwell, president and CEO of the Suburban Hospital Alliance, a regional trade group representing hospitals on the Island and in the Hudson Valley.

Hospitals are rated year-round for performance, specialties and outcomes by organizations such as the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. News & World Report and Healthgrades, an online health care ranking group.

"They may be using the same data sources, but they can use it in different ways," Darwell said of the different rating groups. "You should always take these things with grain of salt."