Texas Rural Hospital Coherence Observatory (TRHCO v1.0): Architecture, Instrument Specification, and Panhandle Corridor Initialization

This paper presents TRHCO v1.0 — the formal instrument specification, SCFL incorporation architecture, and Panhandle corridor initialization for a coherence measurement system designed to detect rural hospital drift, seam coupling, and corridor propagation before service-line collapse and closure. TRHCO is formally incorporated under the SCFL domain incorporation architecture (Brogdon, 2025d) and represents the first deployment of the Phase Alignment Score (PAS) as a certified SCFL-compatible upstream observable, with PAS_k(t) provided externally by Bostick/CODES — establishing Bostick not merely as a theoretical contributor but as an active upstream data provider to a running coherence observatory. The instrument monitors approximately 76 Tier-1 hospitals across Texas through a strict three-layer pipeline: PAS-initialized node states (Layer 1), SCFL deformation physics (Layer 2), and NRSCO district-level forward forecasts (Layer 3). Each hospital node k carries a state vector X_k(t) = {PAS_k(t), f_k(t), s_k(t), τ_k(t)}. CDI_k(t) is computed via a fully specified weighted linear formula (w₁=0.40, w₂=0.25, w₃=0.20, w₄=0.15) that any researcher can reproduce from the four normalized inputs. NRSCO produces 30/60/90-day trajectory projections, quarterly service-line collapse probability estimates, and intervention window classifications. PAS never appears at Layer 3 — a governance boundary enforced by SCFL-STD-1 and MCIO-1 protocols from the SCFL Governance Suite.A comparison table in Section 2.3 demonstrates that TRHCO adds network-level phase alignment, inter-hospital seam deformation tracking, corridor propagation forecasting, and monthly update cadence — capabilities absent from all existing rural hospital monitoring tools including Chartis and CMS risk stratification. A four-node Panhandle corridor initialization table demonstrates the complete CDI computation pipeline with illustrative values, producing ORANGE (pre-rupture) classification for frontier CAHs and YELLOW for Amarillo hub, with corridor PAS_s ≈ 0.56 indicating early-stage phase decoherence. As of March 2026, TRHCO is in partial initialization: instrument specification complete, Panhandle corridor initialized, statewide PAS_k(t) activation underway. TRHCO-2026-04 will publish the first full statewide GYOR portfolio. Validation pathways include pre-registered historical tests against named Texas closure events (Stamford Memorial 2019, Big Bend Regional 2017–2020, Coon Memorial Dalhart 2018) and PSI-linked portfolio-level stress prediction with pre-registered threshold of 0.65. Parent papers: SCFL Incorporation Manuscript (10.5281/zenodo.19290603) and When Coherence Becomes Measurable (10.5281/zenodo.19299574). “This paper operationalizes the measurement framework introduced in Brogdon (2026g), The Texas Rural Health Observatory (10.5281/zenodo.19255388), delivering the formal SCFL instrument specification and first corridor initialization.”