UW Health SwedishAmerican Hospital Emergency Department receives Distinguished Community Award
UW Health SwedishAmerican Hospital Emergency Department receives Distinguished Community Award Heading link
UW Health SwedishAmerican Hospital Emergency Department leadership received the Distinguished Community Award from the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford (UICOMR). The award was given out at the UICOMR Convocation Ceremony on Friday, April 26, 2024.
The Distinguished Community Award goes to a nominee that enhances the stature or growth of UICOMR with contributions of a special nature.
The Medical Evaluation Response Initiative Team (MERIT) partnered with UW Health’s Emergency Department in 2021 when the Sexual Assault Survivors Emergency Treatment Act was passed, requiring Illinois hospitals to have a qualified medical provider to treat acute pediatric sexual assault victims.
MERIT has provided comprehensive medical evaluations to children in northern Illinois suspected of being abused or neglected since 2008.
Under their partnership with the emergency department, the staff notifies MERIT within minutes of a pediatric sexual assault survivor’s arrival and provides space for the patient to wait and prepare for treatment privately. Because other northern Illinois hospitals couldn’t comply with the unfunded mandate, UW Health collaborated with MERIT to become a treatment hospital to provide required services to children suspected of being sexually assaulted for eight other northern Illinois hospitals.
Since the start of this collaboration, UW Health has served as the treatment hospital for 74 acute pediatric sexual assault survivors and MERIT was consulted on each case.
MERIT would not have been able to offer this invaluable service to its other partner hospitals without the collaboration and support from the UW Health administration and the entire team in the emergency department.
Read more about the convocation ceremony and the Class of 2024 award winners.