The speed with which the federal bureaucracy within the Department of Veterans Affairs has acted in allowing Butler Memorial Hospital and the Butler VA Medical Center to develop a cooperative operating plan that would bring about a new hospital and shared services is encouraging.

The possibility of a new Butler Memorial Hospital being built on the 80-acre VA campus in Butler Township offers some intriguing possibilities that could result in a win-win situation for overall health care in Butler County and for the region's veterans.

The idea of a partnership with BMH seems to come at an ideal time - a kind of perfect-storm alignment of BMH's needs for a new or updated facility and the VA's interest in improving efficiency of its health care system. Two years into a detailed evaluation of the efficacy of the entire VA health care system, called CARES (Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services), the VA's willingness to advance this proposal suggests a mind-set open to innovative solutions. And BMH seems to be a willing partner in developing a new way of doing things.

If BMH is able to build on the VA land, through a long-term lease arrangement, the hospital will save millions of dollars on land acquisition - in the event that extensive renovation and rebuilding at the current East Brady Street location proves less viable than building everything new.

If a partnership deal is completed as some imagine it, the veterans would be getting top-quality health care and the benefit of state-of-the- art equipment in a brand new facility. That combination is simply not available now to veterans, given the federal budget realities and the age of most medical facilities within the VA system. Given that reality, it makes sense for the Veterans Affairs Department to look for partnerships with public hospitals to share technology and increase overall efficiency in health care delivery, thus reducing costs.

Though many, no doubt devilish, details remain to be worked out, the BMH-VA partnership plan could conceivably serve as a model for the nation. For that reason, this project deserves the full support of U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum as well as U.S. Reps. Phil English and Melissa Hart. These members of Congress should be working aggressively and openly on behalf of the BMH-VA partnership and looking for ways to provide additional financial support to make the project viable.

Because of the possibility of becoming a model for future community hospital-veterans hospital partnerships elsewhere across the country, this project deserves extra attention and financial support from Washington.

There are many challenges ahead for VA and BMH officials. But the green light from Washington is another encouraging step toward an innovative solution to a range of problems facing veterans and the larger Butler County community.

- J.L.W.III