Intermountain Health Care: a multihospital system committed to rural health care.

This article describes Intermountain Health Care's experience in rural health care and outlines the accomplishments and problems that a multihospital system has experienced in maintaining its commitment to rural health care. Development of services in both administrative and clinical functions shared between referral centers and the corporate office with rural hospitals is explained and the amount of savings generated described. The challenge of maintaining hospitals with 20 beds or fewer is explained as well as how hospitals with 50 beds or more are breaking even because of the support from the system. Strategies are described to address decreasing revenues in the environment and alternatives of care available from Intermountain Health Care to the communities that cannot sustain an acute care facility are identified.