"Overall, our quality indicators are very good, but I think we can do a better job of managing those and reporting those to the community and to the various constituents who look at those kinds of things," he says.

Health care reform is bound to bring many more changes to rural health services. Geller of Othello Community Hospital believes that the newly passed law will affect the relationships between hospitals as payment systems shrink.
"We're an independently owned and operated hospital by the tax payers of our district, but those days of free-standing, independent hospitals are waning quickly," he says. "I think when you bring IT into the picture it's just as true there."



Geller says alliances don't come naturally to hospitals, but to be successful in delivering quality health care in the future, it will be an inevitable course.
"We all need to collaborate and work in regional systems of care to deal with less financial resources, yet continue to strive to have better and better patient care," he says.

Olga Deshchenko can be reached by e-mail at olga@dotmed.com

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