News Local/State

Paris, Ill. Hospital Is Latest To Join Carle Rural Alliance

By Jim Meadows
 

The 25-bed Paris Community Hospital in Edgar County is the latest small hospital to join a lineup of small downstate facilities that are coordinating their care with the 393-bed Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana.

An affiliation agreement has given the smaller hospital in Edgar access to Carle’s specialists for years. But, as of June 23rd, Paris Community Hospital is part of Carle’s Rural Alliance for Exceptional Care. Paris Community President and CEO Oliver Smith says the Alliance brings them together with other small hospitals to present their interests to Carle.

“As a group, we can come together and say, this is what we need as a group for the Carle people to focus on, to provide more services to us”, said Smith. “It’s not necessarily all clinical. They will be able to provide expertise in, maybe, different things, as far as quality measures, all those types of things that are coming down the road.” 

Carle Regional Care Director Ruth Madawick members of the Rural Alliance hospitals coordinate their efforts through regular meetings of a board of representatives.

 “So it creates a formal structure that allows us to do some joint planning, potentially some physician joint recruitment”, said Madawick. “One of the real challenges in rural health care is recruiting specialists. So we’re able to do more things together than we could as separate entities.”

Membership in the Carle Rural Alliance does not preclude affiliations with other hospitals. Smith says Paris Community Hospital is keeping its affiliations with hospitals in Mattoon and Terre Haute. And hospitals in the Rural Alliance remain separate and independent from Carle --- with the exception of the 25-bed Carle Hoopeston Regional Health Care Center. That hospital has been a member of the Carle Foundation since 2012.

The Carle Rural Alliance for Exceptional Care also includes Crawford Memorial Hospital in Robinson (25 beds), Richland Community Hospital in Olney (135 beds) and Kirby Medical Center in Monticello (21 beds).