A number of Illinois hospitals are participating in special initiatives to improve the quality and safety of care for patients. Collaboratives engage hospitals to work together to implement improvements in the delivery of care to patients in specifically identified areas. Each hospital commits a team of health care workers to participate, utilizes specific "best practice" interventions known to facilitate improvement and evaluates changes in their practices. Hospitals share experiences with each other and provide support that can help improve success. By focusing on specific practices in the work environment, hospital teams have made a series of small changes that have resulted in big improvements. For example, past collaboratives that have focused on reducing central line- associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) have demonstrated striking improvements, with infection reductions of more than 70 percent.
In Illinois, there are several major hospital prevention collaboratives focused on reducing health care-associated infections. Seventy five hospitals participate in a collaborative sponsored by the Illinois Hospital Association (IHA) to reduce central line-associated blood stream infections. Through its recently established Quality Care Institute, the IHA is initiating a new collaborative focused on preventing urinary tract infections this fall, 2010, (and 198 hospitals have recently signed a pledge to reduce seven major hospital acquired infections and complications). Seven hospitals are engaged together in a collaborative to reduce Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections that is coordinated by the IFMC-IL, the designated quality improvement organizations for Medicare in Illinois. Supported by a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant, the Illinois Department of Public Health, in partnership with the IFMC - IL and a multi-stakeholder advisory council, is running a Clostridium Difficile prevention collaborative with 11 metropolitan Chicago hospitals. This collaborative is being extended to ten hospitals in southern Illinois beginning fall, 2010.