A Healthy Trend In So Many Ways

Three-and-a-half years ago, syndicated columnist and urban expert Neal Peirce came to Spokane to do what he’s noted for: Study a community, interview dozens of its residents, size up its possibilities and identify promising strategies for its future.

Here’s one of the recommendations Peirce included in a list of the Spokane area’s “stunning assets”:

“The potential to forge, out of the health care debate now seizing America, a model of a new health care system that brings economic growth. And not just by serving the Inland Northwest with new technologies but also by focusing on preventive care more than after-the-fact medical repair.”

Peirce undoubtedly would approve of last week’s announcement that Spokane’s health care community has laid plans for a regional cancer center here. Spokane area residents should be pleased, too.

Few of the details are worked out yet, but the general outline, described at last week’s announcement, calls for a center that provides state-of-the-art treatment, outpatient care, research and community education.

Affiliation with Seattle’s prestigious Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center will give significant resources as well as added respectability to the Spokane facility.

Solidifying Spokane’s role as a medical hub in the Inland Northwest benefits not only the region’s economy but also the health and well-being of people living in Spokane and surrounding communities.

As it is, health care is no slouch in Spokane’s economy. It’s a $2 billion a year industry and the community’s largest private employer. Still, thanks largely to insurers, 20 percent of the cancer patients here go elsewhere to obtain treatment. Often, that means anxious months far from the family and friends whose emotional support is critical at such a stressful time.

The kind of top-notch cancer center that was described last week would make it harder for ledger-minded insurance companies to steer Spokane area patients to Portland or Seattle. Meanwhile, good jobs would be created here, at the center and the health care facilities associated with it as well as in related businesses that would move or be created here.

Besides forging a productive relationship between health care and the growing higher-education presence in Spokane, the planned cancer center represents another impressive example of the collaborative spirit that the city’s hospitals and health care providers have developed over the past four years.

Cutthroat competition over such things as helicopter transport services and trauma care has been replaced by cooperative, community-interest approaches to pooling resources and bringing area residents high-quality, efficient service. That’s a healthy trend.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Floyd For the editorial board