For the fifth consecutive time, South Shore Hospital has earned an “A” safety grade rating from The Leapfrog Group, a designation that ranks the hospital among the safest in the Greater Boston area and the United States.

When she felt the first contractions at 11:15 p.m. New Year’s Eve, Renai Townsend thought she had time to get to Boston to deliver her second child. “I thought they were Braxton Hicks contractions, which I had before,” she said. Renai called her parents to come over to watch her 2-year-old son, Will...

What started in 2006 as a program with one nurse and 30 machines has grown to include coverage seven days a week using medical equipment that has the capacity to remotely monitor up to 175 patients.