Among the institutions crucial to the social, physical and economic well-being of North Central Washington, none stand higher than Central Washington Hospital and the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center. We enjoy access to quality health care that far exceeds what could be expected in a region with our population and geography. We are blessed with it. It enhances our reputation and makes this an attractive place to live. More important, the fine quality and abundance of health care in our home town provides us comfort in the most decisive moments of our lives.

We all are anxious for Central Washington Hospital and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center to survive and thrive. From outward appearances we assumed it was so, but economics and trends in care have been brutal to Central Washington Hospital finances, so much so it is evident we are on the cusp of unavoidable change.

The comfortable status quo is inevitably lost. The change we should welcome was set in motion last week by the board of Central Washington Hospital and the physicians of the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center. They propose that the hospital and medical center combine under the direction of a single, nonprofit foundation and its one board of directors. This would not be a merger, with assets combined under single ownership. It is not a hostile takeover. Hospital and medical center will remain separate institutions under common management.

This will bring economic efficiencies by reducing duplication of effort. For we the patients, the change may be unnoticeable. The same people we have come to know and trust will be providing our care in the same fine facilities.

Most important, this combining will avoid less desirable alternatives, such as a major conglomerated health care provider based in some distant metropolis coming in and taking over Central Washington Hospital. That would end once and for all the congenial cooperation between hospital and medical center that has helped make this region’s health care excellent. It would disrupt our care, disrupt our relationship with physicians, and very likely send us to some other city for care we are accustomed to receiving here.

That outcome is not what we want or need. It would be detrimental to the quality of care while providing no economic benefit to patients. Money that once stayed here would flow elsewhere, in copious amounts.

The difficult details of this institutional combining are being worked out, and must past muster with regulators and overseers. They will. This will be a watershed moment in the history of health care in this region, and we surely hope, as we always have, that these two institutions can grow and thrive in cooperation.

This is the opinion of The Wenatchee World and its Editorial Board: Editor and Publisher Rufus Woods, Managing Editor Cal FitzSimmons, Chief Financial Officer Janine Bakken and Editorial Page Editor Tracy Warner.