On the surface, the partnership announced this week by the University of Kansas Hospital and Hays Medical Center appears to be a smart move for both hospitals.

For Hays Medical Center, the partnership provides the patients it serves over a large geographic region access to a broader range of health care resources and services. For the University of Kansas Hospital, it extends the hospital’s brand and helps underscore the seriousness of KU’s efforts to provide greater health care access to rural parts of the state.

Addressing rural health care access is high on state legislators’ agenda. Increasingly, Kansas’ rural hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of small populations that are, on average, older, poorer and more geographically isolated. In a national study released earlier this year by iVantage Health Analytics, 31 of 107 rural hospitals in Kansas were identified as facing some risk of closure because they shared characteristics with rural hospitals that already have been forced to close.

KU Hospital president and CEO Bob Page said the partnership with Hays Medical Center is not a merger but a business model aimed at improving the quality of health care for western Kansas.

“The beauty of this is, nothing is requiring us to do this. We’re both very strong organizations and we have great track records,” Page said. “We have an opportunity to see if we can combine the best and the brightest minds, and we can standardize care. We can become more efficient and effective in our care and we’ll provide better care to patients.”

Part of the drive for the partnership is changes in how hospitals will be paid for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly. Medicare payments are moving to an outcome-based approach rather than reimbursement for services rendered. That shift puts pressure on stand-alone nonprofit hospitals like Hays Medical Center to identify partners like KU Hospital to help them offer a full complement of medical procedures and services.

KU Hospital is a 756-bed facility, with another 100 beds under construction, in Wyandotte County. It is co-located with KU Medical Center, the university’s school of medicine, and faculty of the medical school are also on staff of the hospital.

Hays Medical Center is a 207-bed private, nonprofit hospital that serves about 21,000 people in western Kansas. Notably, it’s also the supporting hospital for 24 smaller Critical Access Hospitals — hospitals with 25 or fewer beds — that are part of the Northwest Kansas Health Alliance.

Page said KU’s partnership with Hays could become a model for partnerships with other hospitals. That would be welcome. The university should be a leader in helping ensure all Kansans have access to quality health care.