If someone — or a large group of people — believes something to be true, over time it will become true.

Citizens in our community for years and years believed that they had to travel to larger cities to obtain good quality health care services.

As a result, the number of patients dwindled, the number of physicians dwindled and a great deal of money began leaving our community.

Rebuilding that and overcoming the perception that quality health care requires at least an hour’s drive, will be a long process.

The problems didn’t appear overnight, and neither can they be fixed overnight.

In the last year, great strides have been made at area hospitals. Local hospital administrators and community leaders began thinking regionally and talking about working together.

The result, eventually, will be a better, more unified, health care system.

But the “fix” is complicated. It’s part marketing — which is heavily needed; part physician recruitment; and part education.

The public must continue to see consistent marketing messages showing that quality health care exists here and that no longer are our health care providers fighting one another.

Intelligent physician recruitment is also needed. We need more doctors, but we need specific specialties brought into the community in a measured approach so that they can quickly become self-sustaining.

Lastly, we need education, both of the public but also of the rest of the medical community and local leaders, too. With education comes and understanding of what services we actually do offer in the community.

Perceptions can be changed, but it takes a community working together to do it.