[medinformatics] Illinois Hospitals Report on Quality

[Medical Informatics News]

The Chicago-based Midwest Business Group on Health began
rolling out quality standards to Illinois hospitals last year and surveying 99 primarily urban hospitals on their
progress. According to the Chicago Tribune, the group has received 42 responses.


The Leapfrog Group, a coalition of large national employers, created the
voluntary measures as a way for the public, particularly employers, who pay the bulk of the rising cost of health care,
to compare hospitals based on quality.*


The Leapfrog measures encourage hospitals to adopt*primary safety practices: computerized order-entry (CPOE)
systems to avoid paperwork mistakes and inaccurate prescriptions; increased staffing of specialists in intensive-care
units; and “evidence-based hospital referrals,” which work to put patients in hospitals where high-volume surgeries and
procedures are performed.*


Quoted in the Chicago Tribune, Dave Loveland, senior vice president of corporate relations at Evanston
Northwestern, which operates Evanston Hospital, Glenbrook Hospital in Glenview and Highland Park Hospital,*CPOE
for medications has been a huge success: “We have eliminated virtually all transcription errors by going to electronic
physician ordering.”


The public can view hospitals’ available data here.

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