Summary: In a growing trend to improve health care, smaller community hospitals have begun partnering with larger urban ones for access to specialists, providing employee training and gaining other support in a cost effective manner. Sometimes, these partnerships also allow patients to remain in their own communities instead of traveling long distances for treatment. We examine the benefits of such formal affiliation agreements by looking at the newly developed relationship between Community Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., and University of Utah Health Care in Salt Lake City.
