Yes. Absolutely! Grand Junction can serve as a model of health care reform. We might not have enough primary care physicians, but the 30-year-old collaborative effort that exists here does present real possibilities for helping reform.

As most readers of this column are aware, the New Yorker Magazine recently highlighted our town. Grand Junction offers a fine example of medical professionals working collaboratively to foster a system of care that emphasizes community over shareholder. It emphasizes access over profit. Quality trumps quantity.

As a follow up to the New Yorker article, National Public Radio asked me to share more information regarding our medical community on lasts week's edition of “Science Friday.”

More importantly, physicians from coast to coast have been asking for more information about Grand Junction's health system. I have taken calls from individual physicians, physician associations, quality improvement organizations, and presidents of physician organizations.

In addition, a few physicians from McAllen, Texas want to visit the Grand Valley to learn more about accountable care organizations. That's right; the community with the distinction of having the most expensive health care in America wants to learn from a community that ranks as one of the most efficient in the country.

Yes. Absolutely! Grand Junction can serve as a model for change.

There is no question that it would be difficult to copy Grand Junction's health system and expect it to work immediately in another community or region. That is not the point. Look closer and one begins to see major differences that help account for some of the cost and quality differences that have recently been spotlighted.

There are reasons why this community offers better Medicaid access than anywhere else in the state.

There are reasons why an electronic medical records exchange has blossomed in the Grand Valley without direct taxpayer funding.

There are reasons why Marillac Clinic and Hospice & Palliative Care of Western Colorado have flourished in Grand Junction.

So what is the recipe? It started with strong and courageous leadership 30-plus years ago, throw in some altruism and collaboration, add quality and cost saving measures, and you start to foster a system that is accountable to the community. What is absent? Well — it's not absent. However, profiteering and greed are noticeably less of a factor in the Grand Junction model.

Maybe we can learn from these success stories. Maybe we can foster community oriented accountable care organizations that help health care professionals emphasize quality while limiting cost. Maybe we can increase access to care.

And maybe, just maybe, we can achieve universal health insurance. It is possible but it will require tough cost control measures and changes in how we deliver health care in America.

What is increasingly apparent is this. Large for-profit insurance companies that care more about shareholder profits instead of community collaboration are fundamentally flawed. It is very difficult for them to be accountable to the community when they are admittedly more accountable to their shareholders.

Things are different here. And now, thanks to an article in the New Yorker, it is being noticed. And yes — it can be used as a model.

Dr. Michael J. Pramenko is a family physician at Primary Care Partners. A graduate of Dartmouth Medical School, he did his residency training in Grand Junction at St. Mary's Family Practice Residency. As president of the Mesa County Medical Society, Dr. Pramenko currently serves on the Colorado Medical Society's Congress for Health Care Reform as well as Club 20's Health Care Committee.