Hospital closings and mergers are all over the news these days. With increasing pressure to cut costs, many hospitals are choosing to consolidate. Of course, it's often the hospitals and clinics in the poorest and most remote areas that are closed first.

And it's not the kind of tide you can usually fight, despite this almost-humorous story of a NYC mayoral candidate's arrest for protesting a hospital closing. 

Decreased costs or no, these consolidations can leave healthcare providers in the lurch:

• Providers in remote or underserved areas may have a hard time finding nearby colleagues for consults.
• Providers that value serving the people that need it most have trouble finding hospital postings they can count on, in underserved areas.

So, what can be done? Well, it's pretty simple, and it's the reason we founded ClickCare. In an age of increasing barriers, healthcare providers can choose to serve, consult, and collaborate outside of their group, hospital, or geographical area. When geography becomes a barrier, telemedicine and medical collaboration become the solution. When schedule and timing coordination become issues, an additional consideration may include hybrid store-and-forward options (rather than teleconferencing.) 

We all went into medicine to serve people. And there are tools that make that possible -- in spite of the challenges presented to us in the form of mergers, cost-cutting, and consolidations.