Brewer, Maine-based Northern Light Health and Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, are one step closer to merging.

Kentuckiana Medical Center in Clarksville, Ind., closed its emergency room March 15, and it will completely shut down in the coming weeks.

From a Maryland health system entering into a $35 million settlement to resolve kickback allegations to a physician receiving a seven-year prison sentence for his role in a false billing scheme, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines.

Flu activity remained elevated across the U.S. for the week ending March 16, according to the CDC's most recent FluView report.

  The Democratic Republic of Congo is experiencing a surge in Ebola infections after several weeks of decline, reporting 55 cases in just six days, according to CIDRAP News.

The World Health Organization finalized its recommendations for the composition of the 2019-20 flu vaccine March 21.

The Philadelphia-based nonprofit Safehouse is in negotiations to secure a building for the nation's first supervised injection site, reports WHYY.

Cherokee (Iowa) Regional Medical Center tapped Gary W. Jordan to serve as president and CEO, according to a Chronicle Times report.

Destination Medical Center in Rochester, Minn., received record investments in 2018 for the multibillion-dollar economic development initiative, according to the Post Bulletin.

Microsoft Healthcare is teaming up with Spiral Genetics, a DNA analysis startup, to identify correlations between the human genome and heart disease characteristics, GeekWire reports.

LaGrangeville, N.Y.-based Health Quest Systems will install IBM Watson Health's artificial intelligence-powered clinical trial matching system throughout its hospitals.

Snap, parent company of photo-sharing, social media app Snapchat, is working to convince pharmaceutical companies to advertise products targeted for younger audiences on its social media platform, CNBC reports.

Six recent health IT vendor contracts and go-lives:

Becker's Hospital Review reported on the following hospital and health system executive moves in the last week.

Mistakes in putting on or taking off personal protective equipment open up healthcare workers to risk of contamination with multidrug-resistant organisms, according to a study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

The board of New Mexico's health insurance exchange voted to not extend CEO Cheryl Gardner's two-year contract March 15, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

UnitedHealthcare, the health insurance arm of UnitedHealth Group, issued $146.2 million in rebates to large and small employers in 2017, according to the Star Tribune.

The following hospital and health system credit rating and outlook changes or affirmations occurred in the last week:

Here are 10 hospitals and health systems that posted job listings seeking pharmacy leaders in the last week.

The House Oversight Committee asked Oxycontin-maker Purdue Pharma to hand over several documents that may help uncover more about the Sacklers, the billionaire family that owns the company, according to STAT.