Monmouth Medical Center Named Top Teaching Hospital by The Leapfrog Group

Long Branch –Highlighting its nationally recognized achievements in patient safety and quality, Monmouth Medical Center (MMC), a Regional Medical Campus of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has been named a Top Teaching Hospital by The Leapfrog Group for a third time.

Announced today, the Leapfrog Top Hospital award is widely acknowledged as one of the most competitive honors American hospitals can receive. The Top Hospital designation is awarded by The Leapfrog Group, an independent hospital watchdog organization.

Among thousands of hospitals in the country, MMC was one of just 72 of the nation’s hospitals recognized as a Top Teaching Hospital. The Top Hospital Award comes on the heels of MMC’s 14th consecutive “A” Hospital Safety Grade, also from the Leapfrog Group.

“This impressive achievement is a testament to the dedication of our highly skilled physicians, residents, nurses and staff and their commitment to providing the highest quality patient-centered care in the safest environment,” said President and CEO Eric Carney. “Monmouth Medical Center’s respected reputation as a university-level medical center attracts the top physicians to our teaching faculty. Our resident physicians and medical students are an integral part of this collaborative approach to achieving superior safety and quality and our commitment as a high reliability organization.”

President and CEO Eric Carney holds the Leapfrog Top Teaching Hospital Award trophy. He gathers with, from left, Chief Medical Officer Kenneth Granet, MD, Chief Academic Officer Joseph Jaeger, DrPH, Chief Nursing Officer Diann Johnston, Vice President of Clinical Operations Michael Perdoni, and William Downs, DO, President of the MMC Medical Staff.

MMC serves as a regional medical campus of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to teach third and fourth year medical students. It is a member of the Council of Teaching Hospitals of the Association of American Medical Colleges, a status held by only 400 of the nation’s 6,000 hospitals, and trains residents and fellows in Dental Medicine, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Pathology, Pediatrics, Pharmacy, Diagnostic Radiology and General Surgery. It is ranked 29^th among the 50 best major teaching hospitals in the United States by Washington Monthly and the hospital recently achieved full four-year reaccreditation as a provider of continuing medical education for physicians following a rigorous Medical Society of New Jersey survey.

Medical education has long played a key role at MMC. In fact, in 1945, the hospital established its first residency program in orthopaedics – the first such program in New Jersey – to meet the needs of physicians returning from World War II trained in treating battlefield trauma.

“As a teaching hospital, Monmouth Medical Center prides itself not just on providing quality health care, but on preparing the physicians of tomorrow,” said Chief Academic Officer Joseph Jaeger, DrPH. “Widely recognized for the quality of their programs, teaching hospitals are responsible for training new generations of physicians and are the frontrunners in medical research and technology.”

Performance across many areas of hospital care is considered in establishing the qualifications for the award, including infection rates, maternity care, and the hospital’s capacity to prevent medication errors. The rigorous standards are defined in each year’s Top Hospital Methodology.

“It takes leadership, teamwork and absolute dedication to patients to achieve this award,” Leapfrog President and CEO Leah Binder said in announcing the 2021 Top Hospitals’ lists.

To qualify for the Top Hospitals distinction, hospitals must submit a Leapfrog Hospital Survey and achieve the highest performance scores in its category. The selection of Top Hospitals 2021 is based on surveys from nearly 1,900 hospitals. To see the full list of institutions honored as 2021 Top Hospitals, visit www.leapfroggroup.org/tophospitals.