Months of silence on the future of Butler Memorial Hospital have been broken by the announcement that a new option, a third way, will be explored.

For more than a year, the debate had focused on either building an entirely new hospital on a new site or re-working the existing site for a mostly new facility that still utilizes some of the current location's assets. For too long, productive discussions about the future of health care in Butler County has been replaced by bickering - or silence.

Last week, the hospital announced that it would study the possibility of relocating BMH's outpatient services to a new facility to be built next to the new ambulatory surgical center on Benbrook Road in Butler Township. Then, taking advantage of the additional space created by that move, re-working the Brady Street campus to focus on inpatient services and emergency care.

For most of the past year, the hospital, discussion has been frozen in a sort of log jam, in which the two opposing sides were unwilling to yield an inch. A new idea, another option was needed to move the discussion forward. Last week's announcement provides that opportunity.

Naturally, there will be many questions as details of the potential new plan are developed.

The first reaction to managing a two-campus facility relates to the added costs of duplicate infrastructure - heating and air conditioning systems, backup generators, phone systems etc.

But on the plus side, the concept seems to offer some advantages.

By shifting the rapidly growing outpatient services to a new site and new facility, the parking burdens of the current site are dramatically eased. And, the significant cost of building additional parking garages can be avoided.

Also, the probability that the 25-year-old "Main" building on the current campus, the newest of the existing structures, can be renovated to accommodate expanded in-patient care is appealing on several levels.

From a financial perspective, there should broad support for utilizing a building for which millions of dollars is still owed. And functionally, with the removal of outpatient services from the Main building, there should be interesting opportunities for expanded services and more efficient space reconfiguration.

With few details available, the process of exploring this third way has only begun. But it is a good start.

Just a return to public dialog about the needs for a new, updated community hospital would be a good start. And, at least initially, the potential benefits of the dual-campus plan seem to make last week's announcement an even more welcome development.

No doubt, challenges will arise, but as this new proposal is explored and discussed, it is an opportunity for the community to come back together and to focus on what should be the universal objective - creating the best, most effective and most affordable health care for Butler County in the years to come.