OLEAN, N.Y. — Upper Allegheny Health System officials on Friday forecast enhanced services as they moved a step closer to affiliating with the larger, resource- and specialist-laden Kaleida Health network.

Facing challenges prompting many small, rural health networks to cooperate with regional powers — as well as national-scale insurance uncertainties — those officials touted future security for tens of thousands of patients seeking care close to home.

“We want to be proactive,” said Tim Finan, president and CEO of Upper Allegheny Health System, who also heads its members, Olean General Hospital and Bradford (Pa.) Regional Medical Center. “This has all been predicated on making the best possible deal for our position of strength. When you’re not a strong system, you don’t have as many choices, I don’t believe. … I can’t stress enough that this is not being done out of any sense of desperation. It’s a proactive move to help ensure our future and to secure and enhance health care locally.”

Buffalo-based Kaleida Health will likely become Upper Allegheny’s parent organization after a series of hurdles that began in earnest Thursday with approval by the New York State Department of Health Committee on Establishment and Project Review. Officials with Kaleida and UAHS publicly announced the path to affiliation last May in a joint press conference in Olean.

While admitting there’s no “crystal ball,” Dennis McCarthy, UAHS vice president for marketing and communications, said the local executives and boards of directors for both hospitals will remain intact as separate legal entities. The process will next go before the New York State Public Health and Health Planning Council on Feb. 9. Approval also will include filings with the Federal Trade Commission through both attorneys general in New York and Pennsylvania, McCarthy said, anticipating no difficulties, although Albany tends to be more “formal” than Harrisburg.

Affiliation may be complete by spring.

“In terms of corporate changes, they’re really going to be imperceptible to people,” Finan said. “There’s nothing that’s going to change drastically.”

Financial details under the parental affiliation have not been publicly discussed, but Finan assured, “Kaleida isn’t going to be bankrolling us.”

Olean General and Bradford Regional, however, will have access to Kaleida’s purchasing and other parts of the supply chain as well as clinical specialists.

“They’re ultimately responsible for much of what occurs down here, but they’re maintaining local boards to ensure local voice and local input,” Finan said. “They’re not going to be putting Buffalo people on the board.”

Physician recruitment is critical, and Kaleida as a parent will help, he noted.

“Within the Kaleida system, there are 500 residents and fellows pursuing medical education,” he added. “So we’re really hopeful that can, in turn, be helpful to Olean and Bradford. … We would like to obviously continue to bring primary care to the community. Believe it or not, primary care physicians are increasingly difficult to recruit because they have so many options these days and they’re a basic building block of any medical staff.”

New doctors in Olean and Bradford should yield employment opportunities, Finan said.

“If you add services and you add strength to your program and you’re bringing in new doctors, those new physicians are going to need support, whether it’s an office staff or that sort of thing,” McCarthy added. “Obviously, we know that jobs are always a very important factor.”

Kaleida and Upper Allegheny in 2013 began a courtship that brought both the Interventional Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory to Olean and the Visiting Nurses Association of Northwestern Pennsylvania home care program to Bradford. The cardiac lab at Olean, via Kaleida’s Gates Vascular Institute, also is installing an electrophysiology program to help treat heart-rhythm abnormalities.

“We’re already beginning some cardiac clinics, advanced heart-failure clinics, vascular clinics,” Finan said. “We’re working on all those things with Kaleida, and Kaleida has begun to set up those outpatient clinics down here so people don’t have to travel to Buffalo.”

Signage at Olean General and Bradford Regional may soon bear the Kaleida logo. It brings brand “equity,” Finan said.

“We’re discussing that with them right now. Will we be introducing the Kaleida logo in some form or fashion? That’s exactly how we asked it,” he added. “We’re not in a rush to do that, yet. That kind of underscores that this is not a big, dramatic thing, to an extent. But in time, I think it’ll happen, and I personally would like to see it happen. … It’ll be good for Olean and Bradford.”

According to the latest available financial figures provided by McCarthy, Olean General’s annual revenue was $114.2 million and Bradford Regional’s was $63.9 million with the two employing 894 and 526 staff, respectively. The Kaleida network’s collective revenue was $1.3 billion while employing roughly 10,000 staff.

Kaleida’s hospitals dotting Western New York include Buffalo General Medical Center, DeGraff Memorial Hospital, Gates Vascular Institute, Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital and Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. The organization also is affiliated with Great Lakes Health, Erie County Medical Center and the University at Buffalo, with pending relationships with Brooks Memorial Hospital and Lake Shore Health Care Center, officials said.

“They’ve got great capability up there, and they’ve got wonderful specialty areas in cardiovascular, neurology, pediatrics with Children’s Hospital, and all the services,” McCarthy said. “I think the possibilities are not necessarily limitless, everything has a cost to it, but the possibilities are intriguing.”

Sixty-five percent of hospitals nationwide operate in alignment or partnership with others, officials earlier said.