Research Group Gives Most Illinois Hospitals High Marks For Patient Safety

From The Center Square:

By Scot Bertram

Most Illinois hospitals scored well in a new report on patient safety.

The grades were released by a nonprofit watchdog organization, The Leapfrog Group, which seeks to educate the public about the safety and quality of health care facilities.

More than 100 general, acute care hospitals in the state made the list.

“Overall, we've seen some good performance from Illinois in the past and that continues this year,” said Erica Mobley, director of operations for The Leapfrog Group. “With 43 percent of hospitals achieving an ‘A’ grade, that’s significantly better than the national average and puts Illinois in the top ten nationwide. It's good to see hospitals sustaining some good performance.”

Twenty-two other facilities were awarded a “B” grade, while 31 got a “C.”

Hospitals with high marks tend to share certain traits.

“We see that hospitals are doing well on things like preventing medication errors by having the right technology in place, implementing strong staffing policies related to nursing and physicians staffing the ICU,” Mobley said. “Then then as a result of all those good practices they put in place, we generally see lower rates of errors.”

On the other end of the spectrum, one hospital in the state received an “F.” Mobley said John Stroger Hospital in Chicago has struggled with implementing the right staffing in its ICU and with basic hand hygiene practices.

“They also seem to be falling short on leadership engagement on safety and have experienced some high rates of errors, for example, a high rate of foreign objects retained after surgery,” Mobley said. “Patients going there should be aware and should ask their doctors and nurses what the hospital is doing to keep them safe and ensure that errors don't happen.”

The study considered 28 different factors when assigning grades, including policies, procedures and patient outcomes.

“The things that we're looking for aren't necessarily very high-tech or expensive equipment,” Mobley said. “We're looking for things like, do they have a hand hygiene policy in place? What are they doing to communicate with patients effectively about their medications? Things like that really any hospital can do.”

Six other facilities in Illinois received “D” grades, including two downstate. Mobley said even patients with little choice as to what hospital will be treating you, there’s still a benefit to looking at the data.

“If it is a hospital that has demonstrated a poor safety record, patients should be aware of that and be extra vigilant when they're in the hospital,” Mobley said. "Talk to your physicians and other caregivers to ensure that safety is top of mind for everyone.”

Most of the information used in the report comes from 2019 data, prior to hospitals treating COVID-19 patients in their facilities.

“Infections have been an issue in hospitals for a long time,” Mobley said. “We really hope that once we're past this pandemic, hospitals will be able to take some good lessons from what they've learned through these past couple months and improve at infection prevention in the years to come.”

To see ratings for hospitals in Illinois, visit hospitalsafetygrade.org.

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