Quality & Patient Safety

Illinois hospitals have always been strongly committed to improving quality and providing the best and safest care, working intensely for years to improve quality and patient safety. Hospitals have engaged in a wide variety of initiatives, ranging from implementing color-coded wristbands (colors are used to quickly alert caregivers about allergies, do not resuscitate and risk to fall), to ensuring that the best practices are always followed for patients with pneumonia, heart attack, and other serious conditions. 

Hospitals throughout the state have participated in the Illinois Hospital Association's (IHA) Patient Safety Collaboratives, where they learn from expert faculty in an intense learning setting on topics such as medication safety, working effectively with patients' families, and preventing hospital-associated infections.  This year more than 50 Illinois hospitals are part of a two-year program (in conjunction with the esteemed Johns Hopkins University) targeting central line-associated blood stream infections, which has been identified by Congress and health policy experts as a model for national improvement in quality of care. Illinois hospitals also participate in IHA's "Quality Encounter" programs, in which host hospitals share their successes with clinical best practices with visiting hospitals. 

In 2007, before MRSA (a serious antibiotic-resistant staph infection) became a major public health issue, Illinois was the first state to require MRSA screening of high-risk hospital patients, a law supported by the hospital community.  Hospitals and IHA have also strongly supported openness and accountability in reporting information to the public on patient safety and quality. We have supported landmark legislation for the reporting of critical health care information, such as the Hospital Report Card and Consumer Guide to Health Care and the Adverse Health Care Event Reporting Law.