Bill Text: IL HB4977 | 2025-2026 | 104th General Assembly | Enrolled

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Bill Title: Amends the Hospital Licensing Act. Defines "pathogens of epidemiological concern". Provides that each hospital shall develop and implement comprehensive interventions to prevent and control pathogens of epidemiological concern (instead of multidrug-resistant organisms) that take into consideration guidelines of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or recommendations from the Infectious Disease Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, or the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society for the management of multidrug-resistant organisms in health care settings. Within 12 months after the effective date of the amendatory Act, requires each hospital to adopt a policy for preventing and controlling the transmission of pathogens of epidemiological concern. Establishes reporting requirements for hospitals with patients carrying pathogens of epidemiological concern. Repeals the MRSA Screening and Reporting Act.

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4)

Status: (Passed) 2026-06-26 - Public Act . . . . . . . . . 104-0508 [HB4977 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2025-HB4977-Enrolled.html

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AN ACT concerning regulation.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Hospital Licensing Act is amended by
changing Sections 3 and 6.23 as follows:
(210 ILCS 85/3)
Sec. 3. As used in this Act:
(A) "Hospital" means any institution, place, building,
buildings on a campus, or agency, public or private, whether
organized for profit or not, devoted primarily to the
maintenance and operation of facilities for the diagnosis and
treatment or care of 2 or more unrelated persons admitted for
overnight stay or longer in order to obtain medical, including
obstetric, psychiatric and nursing, care of illness, disease,
injury, infirmity, or deformity.
The term "hospital", without regard to length of stay,
shall also include:
(a) any facility which is devoted primarily to
providing psychiatric and related services and programs
for the diagnosis and treatment or care of 2 or more
unrelated persons suffering from emotional or nervous
diseases;
(b) all places where pregnant females are received,

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cared for, or treated during delivery irrespective of the
number of patients received; and
(c) on and after January 1, 2023, a rural emergency
hospital, as that term is defined under subsection
(kkk)(2) of Section 1861 of the federal Social Security
Act; to provide for the expeditious and timely
implementation of this amendatory Act of the 102nd General
Assembly, emergency rules to implement the changes made to
the definition of "hospital" by this amendatory Act of the
102nd General Assembly may be adopted by the Department
subject to the provisions of Section 5-45 of the Illinois
Administrative Procedure Act.
The term "hospital" includes general and specialized
hospitals, tuberculosis sanitaria, mental or psychiatric
hospitals and sanitaria, and includes maternity homes,
lying-in homes, and homes for unwed mothers in which care is
given during delivery.
The term "hospital" does not include:
(1) any person or institution required to be licensed
pursuant to the Nursing Home Care Act, the Specialized
Mental Health Rehabilitation Act of 2013, the ID/DD
Community Care Act, or the MC/DD Act;
(2) hospitalization or care facilities maintained by
the State or any department or agency thereof, where such
department or agency has authority under law to establish
and enforce standards for the hospitalization or care

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facilities under its management and control;
(3) hospitalization or care facilities maintained by
the federal government or agencies thereof;
(4) hospitalization or care facilities maintained by
any university or college established under the laws of
this State and supported principally by public funds
raised by taxation;
(5) any person or facility required to be licensed
pursuant to the Substance Use Disorder Act;
(6) any facility operated solely by and for persons
who rely exclusively upon treatment by spiritual means
through prayer, in accordance with the creed or tenets of
any well-recognized church or religious denomination;
(7) an Alzheimer's disease management center
alternative health care model licensed under the
Alternative Health Care Delivery Act;
(8) any veterinary hospital or clinic operated by a
veterinarian or veterinarians licensed under the
Veterinary Medicine and Surgery Practice Act of 2004 or
maintained by a State-supported or publicly funded
university or college; or
(9) a psychiatric residential treatment facility
certified under the Psychiatric Residential Treatment
Facilities (PRTF) Act.
(B) "Person" means the State, and any political
subdivision or municipal corporation, individual, firm,

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partnership, corporation, company, association, or joint stock
association, or the legal successor thereof.
(C) "Department" means the Department of Public Health of
the State of Illinois.
(D) "Director" means the Director of Public Health of the
State of Illinois.
(D-5) "Pathogens of epidemiological concern" means any
infectious agent that has one or more of the following
characteristics:
(1) a propensity for transmission within health care
facilities based on published reports from:
(A) the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention; or
(B) the Department of Public Health;
(2) the occurrence of temporal or geographic clusters
of 2 or more patients;
(3) antimicrobial resistance implications;
(4) association with serious clinical disease or
increased morbidity and mortality;
(5) a newly discovered or reemerging pathogen; or
(6) any other characteristic determined by a state or
local health department.
(E) "Perinatal" means the period of time between the
conception of an infant and the end of the first month after
birth.
(F) "Federally designated organ procurement agency" means

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the organ procurement agency designated by the Secretary of
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the
service area in which a hospital is located; except that in the
case of a hospital located in a county adjacent to Wisconsin
which currently contracts with an organ procurement agency
located in Wisconsin that is not the organ procurement agency
designated by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services
for the service area in which the hospital is located, if the
hospital applies for a waiver pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
1320b-8(a), it may designate an organ procurement agency
located in Wisconsin to be thereafter deemed its federally
designated organ procurement agency for the purposes of this
Act.
(G) "Tissue bank" means any facility or program operating
in Illinois that is certified by the American Association of
Tissue Banks or the Eye Bank Association of America and is
involved in procuring, furnishing, donating, or distributing
corneas, bones, or other human tissue for the purpose of
injecting, transfusing, or transplanting any of them into the
human body. "Tissue bank" does not include a licensed blood
bank. For the purposes of this Act, "tissue" does not include
organs.
(H) "Campus", as this term applies to operations, has the
same meaning as the term "campus" as set forth in federal
Medicare regulations, 42 CFR 413.65.
(Source: P.A. 104-147, eff. 8-1-25.)

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(210 ILCS 85/6.23)
Sec. 6.23. Prevention and control of pathogens of
epidemiological concern Multidrug-Resistant Organisms.
(a) Each hospital shall develop and implement
comprehensive interventions to prevent and control pathogens
of epidemiological concern multidrug-resistant organisms
(MDROs), including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), and
certain gram-negative bacilli (GNB), that take into
consideration guidelines of the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention or recommendations from (A) the
Infectious Disease Society of America, (B) the Society for
Healthcare Epidemiology of America, (C) the Association for
Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, and (D)
the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society for the management of
multidrug-resistant organisms MDROs in health care healthcare
settings. The Department may also consider any other credible
scientific bodies or organizations in adopting rules and
developing policies and findings in relation to the management
of multidrug-resistant organisms in health care settings. The
Department shall adopt administrative rules that require
hospitals to perform an annual facility-wide infection control
risk assessment and enforce hand hygiene and contact
precaution requirements.
(b) Within 12 months after the effective date of this

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amendatory Act of the 104th General Assembly, each hospital
shall adopt a policy for preventing and controlling the
transmission of pathogens of epidemiological concern that
shall, at a minimum, contain:
(1) a facility risk assessment to identify pathogens
of epidemiological concern that considers elements such as
the probability of occurrence, as determined through
surveillance, the potential impact of a pathogen, and
measures the hospital has implemented to mitigate the risk
to patients, health care workers, and visitors; and
(2) appropriate evidence-based procedures and
intervention strategies to identify patients carrying
pathogens of epidemiological concern and to help prevent
patients from transmitting pathogens of epidemiological
concern to other patients and health care workers.
(c) A hospital that has, through appropriate testing,
identified a patient who has a pathogen of epidemiological
concern shall report the patient to the United States
Department of Health and Human Services or the National
Healthcare Safety Network of the United States Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, as required by the Department
of Public Health or the United States Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid services.
(Source: P.A. 95-282, eff. 8-20-07; 95-876, eff. 8-21-08.)
(210 ILCS 83/Act rep.)

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Section 10. The MRSA Screening and Reporting Act is
repealed.