A report out from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality says the quality of health care in Illinois is slipping. The report analyzes more than 100 different indicators – from cancer deaths to hospital admissions for pediatric gastroenteritis – and breaks them out into a dozen broad categories. In at least nine out of twelve, Illinois did worse last year than in the baseline years.
That conclusion surprises and disturbs Dr. Quentin Young, Eight Forty-Eight's medical contributor. He joined us recently to parse the data, and began by explaining this rather obscure federal agency that gathered it all.