Illinois hospital data finally goes online

At long last, Illinois will begin publishing hospital performance data on a state-run website. We say "at long last" because the laws requiring the reports were passed a whopping five years ago, in 2004.

Illinois officials took several years to get their act together, facing obstacles that included a need to amend the measures involved, a complicated rulemaking process and, uh, a few teensy, tiny problems in the governor's office.

This fall, however, the law will go forward as envisioned. The state will begin posting rates of hospital-acquired infections like MRSA and Clostridium dificile infections, nurse-to-patient ratios, and data on the cost and volume of 30 leading procedures performed by hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. The data will be analyzed and posted on the web by IPRO of Lake Success, N.Y.

To learn more about the new Web site:
- read this Chicago Tribune piece

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