I was impressed by an investigation in the Chicago Tribune earlier this month that found that Illinois regulators didn’t look into 85% of hospital complaints received last year. 

Reporter Megan Twohey wrote:

A patient at Harrisburg Medical Center complained to the state that a bacterial infection spreading through the hospital had already killed one person and that nurses and doctors did not wear protective gowns and gloves.

How did Illinois officials respond? They declined to investigate.

At Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital, a patient was pricked by dirty needles, prompting preventive treatment for HIV.

State regulators chose not to pursue that case, too.

They also took a pass on allegations that a staffer at Streamwood Behavioral Health Center assaulted a patient, causing a possible spinal injury, and that a nurse misused an IV machine at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital, leading to a near fatal overdose, a Tribune investigation found.

What is really troubling is that the state says it doesn’t have the funds to investigate these complaints—and the hospital industry has fought attempts to remedy this with a fee that would equal “pennies a day per hospital bed,” the story said.

Reporters in other states should look into hospital oversight, too, and ask some questions:

1) How many complaints have you received against hospitals in each of the past five years?

2) How many of those complaints did your department/agency investigate?

3) How many of those complaints were substantiated (meaning that they were determined to be valid)?

4) How many inspectors do you have devoted to investigating complaints against hospitals? How does that compare to four or five years ago?

5) How do you choose which complaints to investigate?

6) If you have a large number of complaints that have not been investigated, how have you proposed to remedy the situation?

I would also ask whether your state has the ability to fine hospital for lapses in care—and if so, how often they exercise that authority.

If you write a story about your state, I would love to hear what you find.