Poor grade for New Jersey hospitals

It was only a few weeks ago that a new analysis of Medicare care data showed New Jersey ranked No. 1 nationally in following best-practices protocols for four medical conditions. This past week, a new study by HealthGrades, a Colorado-based for-profit company that sells hospital data to hospitals and consumers, ranked New Jersey dead last in preventing 13 types of avoidable complications, such as post-surgical blood infections, blood clots, bed sores and problems resulting from surgical clamps and sponges mistakenly left in a patient's body during surgery.

While the state commissioner of health questioned the validity of the findings, others in the field did not. Much of the data, broken down by hospital, is available for free online at http://www.healthgrades.com/.

Not all the news was bad. Among other things, Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, Community Medical Center in Toms River and Ocean Medical Center in Brick were included in the list of the nation's best-performing hospitals for overall patient safety - a designation reserved for the top 15 percent of hospitals.