A rural hospital/physician health care cooperative.

In an experiment to establish the viability of rural health care delivery, 13 rural community hospitals and their medical staffs formed a cooperative with an urban university based hospital. The consortium offers rural physicians on-site specialty consultation, continuing education programs, joint medical audits, and uniform hospital and staff policies and procedures. This cooperative effort allows most patients to be treated in their own community and helps to break down the isolation of rural practice for the physician.