BONNERS FERRY — Residing in rural communities means emergency resources are stretched more thin than in a larger populated area. As the local hospitals continue to gain resources, they also strive to collaborate and gain knowledge from one another.

The Northwest Hospital Alliance is a collection of hospitals in North Idaho that is made up of several peer groups, one of which is the Nurse Leaders Peer Group, made up of the nursing leaders in the rural hospitals.

Tari Yourzek, RN BSN and chief nursing officer, is chairman for the group, and was one of eight Idaho healthcare professionals to receive the Idaho Rural Health Hero Award at the Idaho Rural Health Association’s annual meeting for 2018.

The network of hospitals consists of Boundary Community Hospital, Bonner General Health, Benewah Community Hospital, Shoshone Medical Center, and Kootenai Health Medical Center.

“The nurse leaders of all of these hospitals get together on a quarterly basis and discuss whatever issues we all have sometimes they are the same issues, and sometimes they are not, but we are able to give each other feedback,” said Yourzek.

The groups choose a patient who has been treated in a local emergency department and then transferred. They collaborate through video conferences and go through a beginning to finish rundown of certain patient scenarios.

“There is a whole timeline on what happened to this person, how did they get here, what treatment did they have, what happened, if anything, in flight, and then Kootenai Health would pick up on the other end explaining further treatment and the outcome for that patient,” said Yourzek.

“I think the big takeaway from that whole process has been, the more we can standardize and provide the best practice throughout all of our hospitals, then that patient is going to receive the highest quality care and it is going to be seamless.”

With a large network that is growing as more hospitals in Idaho and the surrounding area collaborate, the better and more efficient patient care can be.

They also invite physicians, EMS, Life Flight, and recently Harborview Burn Center, to participate in the activity in order to receive the utmost knowledge and provide the best care.

“The category for this award was for nursing collaboration,” said Yourzek. “The groups partnered with North Idaho College to present the nursing grand rounds, and they are presented quarterly. It is based on maybe a patient who has come into our ER, or maybe another hospitals, and we share each quarter by allowing another hospital to do the presentation.”

With the surrounding hospitals coming together, they provide each other with resources and equipment that would otherwise not be offered in the rural areas. There are also specialty doctors such as cardiologists, orthopedic doctors, and surgeons that visit the smaller hospitals, providing services to those residents.

“This award means a lot. Number one, I think North Idaho in general doesn’t get enough ‘hurrahs’ from southern Idaho and this was the first award that the north has received, so that is a big thing,” said Yourzek. “It also reflects all the work that we have done with the five northern counties and those associated hospitals, really providing a model to other hospitals in the far south who have raised their hands in joining the network.”

With communication and support, the hospitals and staff in the rural North Idaho communities continue to do their best to provide quality care to their patients.

Information: Northwest Hospital Alliance, nwhospitalalliance.org