The Spring 2025 Hospital Safety Grades from the Leapfrog Group painted a mixed picture for Central Illinois. Hospitals in Champaign, Decatur, Springfield, Bloomington, and nearby areas received a range of scores from A to D—highlighting sharp differences in how facilities manage patient safety.

Leapfrog’s semi‑annual Spring 2025 update aims to push hospitals toward a zero-harm model, emphasizing prevention of avoidable mishaps. An “A” grade reflects effective programs and protocols that reduce incidents—from wrong-site surgeries to central line infections. Facilities earning such grades often demonstrate systems that meet national benchmarks and show low rates of preventable adverse events.

Conversely, lower-graded institutions may struggle with protocol implementation, ongoing staff training, and compliance monitoring. These failings don’t just compromise patient health. They also create fertile ground for negligence claims.

If you’ve suffered harm and believe breakdowns in your medical care were the cause, contact our medical malpractice lawyers at Chute, O’Malley, Knobloch & Turcy in Naperville. Call 312-775-0042 for a free consultation.

Patterns of Harm in Central Illinois Hospitals

According to reports, OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center in Urbana received a C, while Decatur Memorial Hospital also earned a C. Springfield’s Memorial Medical Center improved its score to a B, and Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana maintained a strong A grade. Meanwhile, some facilities in the region, such as HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, continued to score in the lower ranges.

While these scores reflect a variety of performance measures, including infection control, surgical safety, and staff responsiveness, the lower-performing hospitals share one thing in common: repeated safety concerns that can have legal consequences. For patients treated at facilities with declining or poor safety records, the risk of injury, and the potential for malpractice, may be higher.

Preventable Infections Signal Systemic Breakdowns

Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) continue to be a leading concern across Illinois. Many of the hospitals that received lower safety grades have struggled with infections like MRSA, C. diff, and surgical site infections, conditions that are often avoidable when basic protocols are followed. These infections don’t usually result from one mistake. Instead, they point to patterns: poorly sterilized equipment, inconsistent hygiene practices, overworked staff, or failure to isolate high-risk patients. 

Delayed Response Times and Inadequate Monitoring

Another common failure in lower-performing hospitals is a delay in identifying patient condition. This can happen in post-surgical recovery, intensive care, or even standard medical-surgical units where staff ratios are stretched too thin.

When nurses and doctors don’t catch signs of respiratory distress, internal bleeding, or stroke symptoms in time, the results are often catastrophic. These delays are frequently the result of under-staffing, poor communication, or a lack of escalation protocols, each of which can factor into a medical malpractice claim if the outcome is severe enough.

Surgical Errors and Retained Foreign Objects

Although rare, some hospitals in Central Illinois have seen ongoing issues with surgical complications. In some cases, patients have suffered from retained sponges or instruments. In others, surgeries were performed on the wrong site or wrong patient. These are often classified as never events. As these errors are so serious that they should never occur, they are prime examples of medical malpractice.

For patients, these mistakes often require additional surgeries, long-term disability, and psychological trauma. 

Communication Failures Between Medical Teams

Breakdowns in communication, between departments, shifts, or individual providers, can cause serious harm. A patient’s worsening symptoms may not be relayed during a shift change. Lab results indicating a critical condition might be overlooked. A surgeon might not receive the full medical history before operating.

These lapses are among the most common contributors to malpractice claims. Illinois hospitals that struggle with patient handoffs or medical record accuracy expose themselves to unnecessary risk, and in many cases, legal exposure.

Falls, Bedsores, and Other Signs of Neglect

For many hospitals that received lower safety ratings, issues like patient falls and pressure ulcers remain persistent problems. These are classic indicators of inadequate nursing care or understaffed facilities.

Patients who fall while under hospital supervision, particularly elderly or post-operative individuals, may suffer hip fractures, brain injuries, or worse. Bedsores, meanwhile, are almost always preventable with proper repositioning and skin checks.

What Legal Options Do Injured Patients Have?

Patients who suffer harm in a Central Illinois hospital may have the right to pursue a medical malpractice claim if they can show that:

• The hospital or medical provider owed a duty of care
• That duty was breached through negligence or deviation from standard practices
• The breach directly caused the patient’s injury
• The patient suffered damages—physical, emotional, or financial

Evidence of poor safety performance can support a malpractice claim, especially when it’s paired with medical records, expert testimony, or a history of similar incidents. While Leapfrog ratings are not legal proof by themselves, they can be used to help establish patterns or foreseeability by a medical malpractice lawyer, particularly in discovery.

Hospitals Face Heightened Liability If They Ignore Known Safety Issues

Once a hospital is made aware of safety deficiencies, whether through internal audits, external grades, or previous lawsuits, it has a responsibility to fix them. When administrators ignore those warnings, their liability increases. In legal terms, that’s known as willful or wanton misconduct, and it may open the door to punitive damages in addition to compensatory claims.

Such willful misconduct is especially relevant for Central Illinois hospitals that have received poor safety grades in multiple reporting cycles without visible improvement. Patients injured in those environments may be in a stronger position to sue a hospital, arguing that the facility’s failure was not just negligent, but reckless.

Protecting Patients When Hospitals Fall Short

When hospitals in Central Illinois fail to meet basic safety standards, the consequences can be life-changing. Preventable infections, delayed treatment, surgical errors, and other failures aren’t just medical setbacks. They may be legal violations. If you or someone you love was harmed in a hospital with a known pattern of safety concerns, it’s worth asking whether the injury could have, and should have, been avoided.

At Chute, O’Malley, Knobloch & Turcy, we help patients across Illinois hold negligent hospitals accountable. From missed diagnoses to serious complications caused by inadequate care, our team investigates the facts, works with medical experts, and pursues fair compensation for those hurt by substandard treatment.

To discuss your case with a medical malpractice attorney, contact our Naperville office today at 312-775-0042. We offer free consultations.