As mayor of Kansas City, Kan., Joe Reardon is justifiably proud of the University of Kansas Medical Center, which has trained several generations of physicians and nurses for more than 100 years. After all, the medical center is consistently rated as the best hospital and treatment center in the state, according to a popular ranking of health institutions. So when Mayor Reardon--who heads the government of both the city and Wyandotte County, in which it sits--first learned that Wyandotte had come in dead last among the state’s counties in a rigorous analysis of health measurements in 2009, he was shocked. “We have great access to excellent health care in a state where some counties have essentially no access,” Mayor Reardon says. “And we’re ranked last out of 105 counties? My first reaction was, ‘How could this be?’”