Find your city’s rank in healthcare spending

In a five-part series, Colorado Public News examines how Grand Junction, Colo. has emerged as a model of low-cost, high-quality, near-universal healthcare.

♦ Part 1 details how health care professionals have built a system with an emphasis on primary care and prevention. Accompanying the stories are charts ranking more than 300 cities for cost and quality, and another chart detailing the differences in spending at the end of life in high- and low-cost cities.

♦ Part 2 highlights two key factors in the system, including hospice care and a clinic for the uninsured.

♦ Part 3 features a video on Grand Junction's healthcare system, and a bullet-point breakdown of the how the system is unusual. At 8 p.m. on Wednesday evening, KBDI Channel 12 in Denver will broadcast Studio 12, a discussion and live call-in program, focused on the Grand Junction healthcare system.

♦ Part 4 explains how a simpler approach to healthcare can keep costs low in caring for back pain. A chart shows the dramatic difference in chronic disease in low-cost Grand Junction and high-cost McAllen, Tex. Also, the Studio 12 broadcast will be posted.

♦ Part 5 explores whether the Grand Junction model can be replicated in other communities, and details where it finds savings.

View all published parts here.

Bill Scanlon wrote this story while participating in The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, a program of USC's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. CPN is grateful for the support of the fellowship, and readers like you.

CPN's Bill Scanlon and guests join host Tamara Banks to take a cursory look at how Grand Junction's health system has become a national model for healthcare.

In this hour-long Studio 12 presentation, you'll hear from Dr. Michael Pramenko, president-elect of Colorado Medical Society, Anne Warhover, CEO Colorado Health Foundation, as well as other patients and doctors throughout Colorado sharing insights on what the Colorado health system is doing right and wrong.

Colorado Public News (CPN) is just beginning.

We were founded by award-winning journalists and PBS member station Colorado Public Television to provide in-depth and investigative reporting.

In one major package, we examined the unusually successful healthcare system in Grand Junction, Co., with a mix of multimedia tools: online video, text reporting, photography, charts and links. The package also included a live, call-in broadcast on the Grand Junction system on our sponsoring PBS member station, KBDI-12 in Denver. The program is now available online.

Please, tell us what you think, of healthcare in Grand Junction and our reporting, in the comment sections of each story.

Also, help us shape our news operation with your suggestions, by clicking on "Making a Comment" below.

Like public television, we are raising funds from the community to support our project. As we increase our funding, we'll work up to publishing and airing new in-depth reports weekly, then more frequently. Please help us by clicking on the Donate button and making a personal contribution to Colorado Public News, or volunteer to help with both the fundraising and the journalism.

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Colorado Public Television president and CEO Wick Rowland and CPN editor Ann Imse discuss Colorado Public News.

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