Health care collaboration benefits community as well as CMH

Published 5:00 pm Sunday, October 31, 2010

The availability of quality health care in a community is a deal-maker or deal-breaker for many families considering relocation for employment or entrepreneurial purposes.

And access to good health care is critical for our region’s higher-than-average-and-growing older generation. As life takes its toll, health care issues tend to surface with greater frequency. (I hate that).

If our region can’t support the medical demands of our employee base or our retirees, it stands to suffer economically. (See the Business of Aging.)

In Astoria, Columbia Memorial Hospital has recently been making inroads toward expanding available health care options by partnering with OHSU to provide cardiac and oncology care.

The advent of those two services generated another unlikely partnership between Dr. David Siker, a health care provider who has been a competitor of CMH’s, and will now play on CMH’s team. (See related article, page 1.)

As a result of this successful negotiation CMH, a non-profit hospital with no tax-based funding, will no longer be competing with Siker Medical for dollars critical to the economic health of the hospital.

The community wins too, because it gets expanded services as a result. (CMH officials assure us the fee for imaging services won’t be raised – insurance essentially dictates price structure.)

In addition to this enhancement to CMH’s services line-up, all the parties involved should take a bow for showing the Clatsop County community their willingness to collaborate instead of compete.

Kudos to Erick Thorsen, CMH’s relatively-new CEO; CMH partners and local radiologists Dr. Bill Armington and Dr. Hugh Sabahi; and Dr. Siker, who was open to a discussion with a competitor, and found a “win” for himself in it.

It’s a moment for local health care.

Staff Update: Although former staff writer Joanne Rideout is now working in her new role as station manager for Coast Community Radio, she was still in our employ much of this production cycle. Therefore, readers will continue to find her work in this issue and our December issue.

And though doctors still do not allow him to drive, former reporter Greg Cohen, who suffered cardiac arrest earlier this year, is back in action as a freelance writer for us. You’ll find several of his articles in this issue.

As always, thanks for reading Coast River Business Journal.