Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital reflects on successful fiscal year, looks ahead to 2026

According to Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning (SAIL) consultant Rebecca Modena, during fiscal year 2025, Hines VA boosted its SAIL sepsis metric by nearly 42% and elevated its ranking by 73 spots to the first quintile.

“This is important because Sepsis is a life-threatening emergency which can quickly progress from a simple infection to inflammation and organ damage,” said Modena. “Increasing our ranking to the first quintile showcases Hines’ commitment to decreasing sepsis cases within the medical facility.” 

Sepsis is one of many metrics that Hines’ Quality and Patient Safety (QPS) team, headed by service chief Tuesday Majors, is tracking. 

Under Majors’ leadership, QPS supports, educates, and consults with other services to ensure overall quality of patient care while looking for ways to improve metrics. 

“We always ask, ‘How can we do better?’” said Majors. “Regardless of whether or not we are on the top level of a performance metric, we always want to look at what we can do to improve.” 

One of the many metrics Majors believes will improve in fiscal year 2026 are patient safety indicators (PSI) or less occurring events like pressure injuries, respiratory failures, and dialysis after surgery. 

Metrics like PSIs are directly correlated to quality of care.  

“When you are focusing on overall quality of care, it therefore improves our performance metrics, so slowly and surely you will start to see our numbers continue to move in the right direction,” said Majors. 

She credits Hines executive leadership team for their commitment to improving patient care and ensuring the facility remains a high reliability organization.

“When I met the executive leadership team, I could tell by the way they spoke about HRO that they led in that,” said Majors. “I knew I wanted to work for a team that strives to do what is best for the Veteran” 

Hospital Director James Doelling said ensuring Veterans experience the upmost quality of care is his number one priority. 

“At Hines, we pride ourselves on being a beacon of Veteran satisfaction,” said Doelling. “If Veterans feel that they need more to make their experience superior, then we welcome their feedback and aim to implement their recommendations.” 

Veterans can provide feedback through Hines’ patient advocate office, in comment boxes placed throughout the facility, and via surveys like the Survey of Healthcare Experience of Patients (SHEP) and Veteran Signals survey. According to the most recent V-Signals survey data of fiscal year 2025, 78% were compliments and 12% were concerns. The remaining 10% consisted of recommendations. 

Veteran Experience Officer Candice Kent said recommendations from the V-Signals survey contributed to the opening of Hines’ Veteran Resource Center on August 12. 

“A lot of the data from Veterans and their families said that it was challenging for them to navigate Hines because it is so large, and therefore the Veteran Resource Center was identified as a best practice,” said Kent. “We built the Veteran Resource Center as a one-stop shop of services and resources, so they didn’t have to walk around the whole hospital to get assistance.” 

Other Veteran feedback that was initiated facility wide during fiscal year 2025 included signage in the hallways to reduce speeding on scooters and quiet hours between 9:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. 

Kent said this feedback was gathered during the Veteran-led patient family advisory councils. 

“These monthly meetings, which emphasize the partnership between Veterans and the facility, are unique in that Hines is one of the only VA facilities in VISN 12 that has an active PFAC,” said Kent.  

The PFAC, and other Veteran feedback tools reaffirm Hines’ commitment to Veterans and their families. 

“In fiscal year 2026, our goal is to continue to provide great care for our Veterans and their families,” said Kent. “We want to ensure that they continue to choose us for their care.”