The Institute of Medicine of Chicago may link with a more famous national group bearing a similar name on projects to enhance the quality of medical care in the area.
The local institute has not had ties with the noted Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. The Washington-based group is perhaps best known for its 1999 report that showed medical errors of all kinds contribute to as many as 98,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.
Such information has been of particular use to employers and consumer groups who have used IOM studies to pressure doctors and hospitals to reduce medical errors that have contributed to rising health-care costs.
By working with the national IOM, the Chicago organization says it could help implement standards adopted by the larger organization with area providers of medical care in an effort to improve patient care.
“They have the bully pulpit, but they don’t have any really good way to put in action the initiatives and strategies they promote, and we would like to help them with that,” said Dr. James Webster, president of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago.
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Founded in 1915, the IOM of Chicago is actually more than a half-century older than the national IOM, which was chartered in 1970 as a component of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent body created by Congress to provide insight and counsel on scientific matters.
An affiliation with the national IOM would also go a long way toward raising the Chicago group’s profile. The IOM of Chicago has struggled for recognition in recent years, trying to come back from management problems that hovered over the group in the 1980s.
But under Webster and Executive Director Dr. Arnold Widen, the IOM of Chicago is beginning to show signs of life again.
“We are resuscitating it,” Webster said. “Our model is to collaborate with all sorts of people. We consider ourselves an honest broker.”
Webster plans to meet early next year with national IOM executives to discuss ways the two organizations could work together.
Although it’s unclear what kind of relationship the two groups could forge, the national IOM’s leaders say they are increasingly looking for ways to implement their standards and projects.
“We are very interested to work with a range of organizations and community groups to extend the reach of work that we have done,” said Dr. Harvey Fineberg, president of the national IOM.
Fineberg said his group was recently awarded a $2.5 million grant from the W.R. Kellogg Foundation to create and administer a “health of the public fund” that would work to communicate and disseminate the ideas of the national IOM.
Already, the IOM of Chicago has been working with local employers and providers of medical care as part of its Chicago Patient Safety Forum, which has launched several projects designed to eliminate medical errors.
“You have all these people dying who shouldn’t because of errors,” Webster said. “A hospital infection alone can extend your hospital stay for 15 days and suck up antibiotics that cost $1,000 a day. That is real money.”