The Cook County Health and Hospitals System is at a crossroads right now.  The strategic planning process now underway will chart a course for the coming years: will the decision be made to simply be a tertiary care institution and leave primary care to the FQHCs?  Will the decision be made to comprehensively address the health care needs of the poor only in Cook County?  Or, will the System’s board embrace this opportunity to create an integrated system of comprehensive care, teaching and research, across northern Illinois, joining with the surrounding counties who already use many of the services of the Cook County System?

Health & Medicine hopes the last choice will be the path chosen. We intend to have our voice heard at the town hall meetings coming up this week and next and hope you’ll let your voice be heard too. (Meetings begin at 6pm and are on August 21, 2009, at Truman College, 1145 West Wilson Avenue, Chicago; and on August 24, 2009 at the Math and Science Academy, 8601 West Roosevelt Road, Forest Park.)

We will be posting post-meeting commentary on our blog at:  http://hmprg.typepad.com/health-medicine-hmprg/