hospital care

["bill london" <bill_london@hotmail.com>]

	I recently spent 5 days at Gritman Medical Center getting my broken leg 
renovated.  It was an opportunity to discuss hospital consolidation with the 
people directly involved--and a chance to think about what was right about 
the care I received.
	I was very impressed with the quality of care offered.  Family physicians, 
surgeons, specialists, and nurses all discussed and negotiated about the 
best possible choices for me.  I benefited from the collective intelligence 
and experience of a community of caring professionals.  That interaction was 
strongly facilitated by the physical proximity of those people: they all 
worked at Gritman together.
	If the local surgeons decide to build their own surgical unit on the 
Moscow-Pullman Highway, that professional interaction will be lost, or 
severely limited.  Profits may rise, but it sure seems to me that the 
quality of care offered will suffer.
	However, just because the local surgeons have the power and the financial 
clout to build such a facility, does not mean they want to.  It was pretty 
clear to me that the surgeons were using their power to push the Pullman and 
Moscow hospitals to negotiate seriously about collaboration.
	To those who will handle negotiations for hospital collaboration in the 
future, I offer free advice (worth, as they say, every penny).
First, think long term.  Short-sighted, parochial thinking limits 
creativity.  The status quo is not an option.  A new way is needed.  Don't 
be bound by the keep-our-hospital-at-any-price thinking.  That same kind of 
tunnel vision is what is keeping the kids at Troy in a condemned school 
building.
Second, be public.  Using public forums in Pullman and Moscow, involve the 
community in the negotiations.  Enough with the "board members know it all" 
syndrome.
I hope that sincere negotiations, keeping the long-range good of the Palouse 
residents at heart, will result in a creative middle path of collaboration 
that eliminates costly duplication of services and administration while 
providing the facilities that foster a real community of care for those of 
us who rely on the hospitals.
BL
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