Database shows the basics of each rural hospital's finances

Want to check the financial history of your local hospital? There's a quick and easy way to get the fundamental figures, thanks to a reporting project last year on rural hospitals by GateHouse Media, which has absorbed Gannett Co. and taken its name. The database built for the project now resides on the USA Today Network site.

At right is a screen grab of the financials of Breckinridge Memorial Hospital in Hardinsburg, Ky., which Kentucky Health News reported last year typically had a week's worth of cash flow on hand after it failed to persuade county officials to impose a property tax to subsidize it. The top part shows the hospital's gross revenues by year; the bottom part shows its net income, revealing years of increasing losses. Another chart, not seen here, shows each year's net profits.

William Heisel of the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California wrote about using the database, and wants to hear results from other users.