At certain levels, health care decisions are uncomplicated.

Skinned knee? Band-Aid. Broken leg? Emergency room.

But at the point when the health care system’s own health is at stake, complexity sets in. The Spokane area is about to find that out as a prolonged process gets under way to decide whether the community’s oldest hospital will be sold to a for-profit buyer, Community Health Systems Inc.

For now, Empire Health Services, which owns both 111-year-old Deaconess Medical Center and Valley Hospital and Medical Center, has a nonbinding agreement of intent with the Tennessee company. That’s all.

But like nearly all hospitals in the state, Deaconess and Valley are nonprofit enterprises, and under the law there is a public interest to be protected. Evaluating the web of considerations that would be affected by a sale will take careful attention.

The process will afford residents an opportunity to express their opinions, but that will be of little use if the public doesn’t have adequate information with which to form those opinions.

It’s troubling, therefore, to hear a state official say documents that lay out the details of the application may not be posted on a Web site when they’re filed. Janis Sigman, manager of the state Health Department’s facility certification program, said she will probably make CDs available on request but doesn’t have personnel to put the information on the Web.

That’s not sufficient. Residents of this region will have many questions, and they deserve convenient access to information that will help them evaluate the many answers they will hear.

What will happen to charity care, which has largely been shared in Spokane between Deaconess and Sacred Heart Medical Center?

Will a for-profit operator keep providing women’s reproductive care, which Sacred Heart and Holy Family Hospital, as Catholic institutions, don’t allow?

Will the collaboration that gives area physicians shared privileges at both Deaconess and Sacred Heart continue or be jeopardized by a for-profit ownership?

On some points there are no questions. Successful health care institutions are vital to this community’s economic future. Deaconess was in serious financial difficulty, losing more than $35 million in 2005, but has rebounded impressively in the last couple of years. Still, costs keep climbing and operating efficiencies can achieve only so much.

Empire’s board, which once ruled out a sale, has now concluded it’s in the region’s best interest. As the decision-making process moves ahead, residents are entitled to enough information to let them judge whether they’re being served. A process that ensures public confidence in the outcome should be encouraged.

It’s not asking too much that the state put that details a mouse click away.