Ms. Ruokis leads an expansive portfolio at University of Chicago Medicine spanning quality performance improvement, patient safety, infection prevention, regulatory compliance, risk management, operational excellence, business continuity, emergency management and the system project management office. A trained industrial engineer, she has built a culture of safety anchored in just culture principles and high-reliability systems, producing a 20% year-over-year increase in safety event reporting and a nearly 80% identified reporter rate, which are both indicators of a psychologically safe, learning-oriented environment. Under her leadership, University of Chicago Medical Center earned its 28th consecutive “A” hospital safety grade from The Leapfrog Group in November 2025, a streak dating to 2012 that places it among only 11 hospitals in the U.S. to maintain a perfect record, making it the only hospital in Chicago and the only research-intensive academic medical center in the country to do so. The medical center was also named a Leapfrog “Top Teaching Hospital” for the eighth time in December 2025. Ms. Ruokis was selected as a judge for the inaugural “Patient Safety Prize,” a global initiative awarding $5 million to breakthrough innovations in preventable healthcare harm reduction.
