In May 2018, the Patient Access Collaborative, formerly the Patient Access Symposium, recognized SIU Medicine with the award "Best Practice in Patient Access for Referral Management." The Patient Access Collaborative, founded in 2011, provides a forum for large academic health systems to discuss solutions, disseminate ideas and collaborate as a collective group to improve patient access in a complex ambulatory enterprise. The collaborative also invited SIU Medicine to become a member of an elite group of health care organizations, including UC Davis Health System, Duke Medicine, Keck Medicine