Three Illinois hospitals keep straight-A streak in new Leapfrog hospital safety grades

Just under 25% of Illinois hospitals earned A grades this fall from hospital safety nonprofit The Leapfrog Group, including 18% of Chicago’s 22 eligible hospitals.

The grades examine safety procedures at general hospitals nationwide, focusing on prevention of medical errors, accidents and infections.

Leapfrog tracks bloodstream infections associated with central lines, which deliver medicine and other fluids intravenously. The nonprofit also tracks MRSA, a type of staph infection that resists most antibiotics, as well as urinary tract infections associated with catheters.

The nonprofit focuses on similar criteria to those collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, said Dr. Lakshmi Halasyamani, system chief clinical officer at NorthShore – Edward-Elmhurst Health.

This fall’s scores are the first to be considered post-pandemic, as there is some delay between when safety data happens and when it is collected, analyzed and scored. Preventable infections in hospitals spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, but are now trending downward in Leapfrog-graded hospitals, said Leah Binder, CEO of The Leapfrog Group.

“There is clearly a strong effort nationally by hospital leaders, and certainly in Illinois, to bring these infections down,” Binder said. “And that has been a relief for us to see.”

Nearly 15% of A-rated hospitals in Illinois this year are based in Chicago. More than 7% of participating Illinois hospitals earned Ds, including Chicago’s Advocate Trinity Hospital, Thorek Memorial Hospital and Community First Medical Center. None received an F.

University of Chicago Medical Center is one of 18 hospitals nationwide that hasn’t missed an A rating since the award launched in 2012. Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield is another.

Managing safety across an entire system requires everyone on staff to feel comfortable speaking up about what they see on patient floors, said Dr. Tom Spiegel, chief quality officer at University of Chicago Medicine.

Though University of Chicago Medical Center has gotten an A every year, its overall score has risen over time. Discussions about central lines and other infection management protocols happen every day, Spiegel said.

“We celebrate the reporting of risk events,” Spiegel said. “It’s not that we celebrate the risk event, but we celebrate the reporting of that event … even if things are near misses and even if concerns come up.”

High scores from Leapfrog and other hospital oversight groups can instill trust in patients, but building real connections with community members takes a long time, said Dr. Kimberly Darey, president of Elmhurst Hospital, which has also earned straight A’s since 2012.

“Sometimes people think, ‘OK, I got a great score so that I can breathe and relax,’ but it takes intention,” Darey said. “It takes a lot of intention to continue to want to be better and to always think that there’s more to do.”

Six of seven eligible hospitals in the NorthShore — Edward-Elmhurst Health hospital network received A’s this round, also including Edward, Evanston, Glenbrook, Highland Park and Northwest Community Hospitals. Swedish Hospital received a B this fall.

At Elmhurst, everyone shares the responsibility for calling out hazards — whether you’re drawing a patient’s blood or delivering their dinner, said Sherri Leahy, a vice president of acute care quality at NorthShore.

“A good example would be a dietary aide who’s delivering a tray into a patient room and notices that the patient isn’t quite situated in the bed, looks like they might roll out of bed or on the floor,” Leahy said. “If you see something that looks like it could be a potential hazard, speak up.”

St. Bernard Hospital in Englewood will celebrate its second top grade in a row with custom “A” sugar cookies.

Receiving an F ranking in 2021 was a wake-up call for the community hospital, CEO Charles Holland said

The hospital hired a patient safety leader, using Leapfrog data as “a road map,” Holland said. St. Bernard also recently invested in a digital hand hygiene monitoring system.

“It’s not just a one-time approach,” Holland said. “It’s an effort that has to be sustained over years.”

As a safety net hospital, St. Bernard accepts patients for care regardless of their ability to pay — which can put hospital operations under financial strain. Being more vocal about patient safety has led to productive conversations with community members, Holland said.

“The members of our community deserve the same quality, the same patient care that they would get in any hospital,” Holland said. “It does come up in conversations with patients about why we may be doing a particular procedure or why we may be following a certain process.”

Rush University Medical Center has also earned mostly A’s since 2012.

“We’re always incredibly honored to be recognized in things like the Leapfrog safety grades,” said Dr. Paul Casey, chief medical officer of Rush University Medical Center. “It’s really just a testament to the work our teams do on a daily basis.”

At Rush hospitals, infection prevention teams make daily rounds to ensure monitors and catheters come out of Rush’s 30,000 annual patients as soon as possible.

“We want to get to a point where there’s no events that are avoidable when it comes to patient safety,” Casey said. “Now, that’s not the case at any hospital around the country or around the world, but we know that if we keep trying to set really aggressive targets, that ultimately we are headed closer to that zero harm.”

Roseland Community Hospital, the only Illinois hospital to earn an F rating in the spring, improved to a C this fall. The South Side hospital, where at least seven patients died between 2020 and 2022 due to error or neglect, had previously never earned higher than a D.

Ascension St. Joseph Hospital in Joliet, where nurses went on strike earlier this year, kept its C from spring. Loretto Hospital, which also saw strikes this summer, snagged its usual B rating but did not release information on many of the treatment issues Leapfrog usually tracks.

As acute care hospitals provide emergency care, people don’t often spend time researching before they head to the closest hospital, said Maureen Kharasch, a vice president of acute care quality at NorthShore-EEH.

“One of the questions consumers should ask as they look at these grades is, OK, well, how are you doing now?” Kharasch said. “And what are you doing to improve? Because every system has periods of variation, and has situations where perhaps they were doing well, and now they’ve had a challenge.”

Though infection transmission is receding, patients continue to report worse experiences in hospitals than ever. Labor shortages across the industry could be to blame, Binder said.

Illinois’ safety scores were 28th out of 50 states in both sets of 2023 scores. Binder said she’d like to see the state crack the top 10.

“There’s clearly signs of some innovation and leadership from Illinois hospitals,” Binder said. “We always look to say to Illinois what we’re thinking about, what are some of the models for the next decade. So I encourage them to continue that.”