June 13, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or by email at iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com. 

Stroger Reinstates Community Health Center Access to Referral System

Temporary reinstatement of IRIS comes in wake of community partners’ commitment to help County improve system’s long-term viability.

June 13, 2007, Chicago – After a two-hour meeting with community health partners this morning, Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger has ordered the temporary reinstatement of the IRIS system.

IRIS -- Cook County's Internet Referral Information System -- links to 18 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) that allows doctors at those sites to schedule patients for specialty diagnostic medical services at Cook County’s Specialty Care Center. FQHC doctors are neither affiliated with nor credentialed by Cook County, and their patients were able access $15 million in highly specialized medical care funded by Cook County.

President Stroger called today’s meeting after the County shut down IRIS in April because of the clinic referral system’s untenable financial drain on the County’s specialty clinics, and amidst concerns about the need for greater reciprocity from the County’s IRIS partners.

“The temporary reinstatement of IRIS is a gesture of good will from Cook County to our community partners – and one which we hope will produce a renewed commitment by those community partners to collaboratively address the long-term financial issues that forced the closure of IRIS in April,” said President Stroger. “I’m very hopeful that, as this partnership evolves, we’ll be able to integrate a longer-term vision of reform and modernization that will have sustainable benefits for our patient base.”

Stroger’s announcement comes in the wake of a commitment from those community partners to collaborate more closely with the County in three key areas: the creation of a series of working groups to strengthen the partnership between Cook County’s Bureau of Health Services and its IRIS community partners; a cooperative effort to improve the stream of insured patients to Cook County’s specialty clinics and the volume of uninsured patients cared for by IRIS partners; and a cooperative commitment to lobby in the coming weeks and months for more funds to preserve the region’s health care safety net – with Cook County’s system at the heart of that safety net.

IRIS is expected to be online on Thursday, June 14, and for the following three-month period, during which the County will reevaluate the level of progress with IRIS community partners in addressing the long-term solvency of the system.

IRIS was originally started in 2001 with federal funds designated to improve access to outpatient specialty care for underserved and uninsured populations in Cook County. The effort has been credited with helping shore up the safety net for patients throughout the region, but the IRIS grant expired in 2004, and Cook County is now seeking additional funds to help support the program.

For more information, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com. 

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