Networking services to reach rural outpatients.

The outreach program Marquette General Hospital (Marquette, MI) set up provides rural residents with healthcare services close to home. To create the comprehensive network of healthcare services required establishing outlying clinics with facilities and equipment for visiting specialists and sophisticated, yet cost-effective, laboratory testing instruments. The administrators at Marquette General decided an in-house lab at Marquette Medical Clinic would be convenient for patients as well as physicians. In the future, this lab will be linked to a communications system that encompasses the hospital and all Marquette clinic labs.