NJ Gets Passing Grades On Hospital Safety [AUDIO]

How safe is your local hospital? A new report gives New Jersey hospitals improving grades when it comes to how well they protected patients from injuries, infections and mistakes last year.

The Hospital Safety Card measured by national non-profit the Leapfrog Group gives state hospitals improving grades, mostly A's and B's when it comes to safety issues.

"We found that New Jersey did fairly well on the safety card and ranks very high compared to other hospitals around the country," said CEO and President Leah Binder.

Overall the report found that 48% of New Jersey hospitals stayed the same, 30% fell a grade or two and 16% improved. Of the 2,600 hospitals measured for A grades, New Jersey ranks 14th.

Two hospitals, Our Lady of Lourdes in Willingboro and Hoboken both improved from low scores they received in 2010.

"They went from failing grades to in the middle if not better...and that's significant because not only did they show improvements when it comes to varying measures of safety, they showed improvement relative to the rest of the country," said Binder.

She says safety in a hospital can make a big difference and the overall goal of the report is to get residents to question how safe their hospital is before they go there.

"What is most important to us is that people of New Jersey and across the nation know that it is appropriate for you to talk to your doctor or nurse about the safety of the facility you're being admitted to."

How does your hospital rank? Get the full report online.