Scoring better than average in most safety measures, New Jersey hospital executives say the annual hospital performance report motivated the facilities to improve care. The most recent report showed that the state's hospitals outperformed the national average in seven of 10 patient safety metrics, jumping from the bottom 10 to the top 10 nationally for quality over the last 12 years, reported The Record. Acknowledging that the improvements "did not just happen by chance," Peter Gross, former chief medical officer at Hackensack University Medical Center said, "The health department ... by setting up this report, encouraged competition among hospitals to get better, and it obviously has worked." Article