Hospital pharmaceutical costs marginally decreased in 2023 because of the lessened need for COVID-19 drugs, but overall healthcare spending on drugs grew 13.5% — largely because of weight loss medications, a new study found. 

Eight health systems were named finalists for PR Daily's 2024 Social Media & Digital Awards.

Hospitals reported eight CEO changes last month, marking a 47% decrease from February.

Walgreens is expanding its specialty pharmacy offerings, including gene and cell therapy services, the company said April 25. 

Brian Tabor plans to step down from his role as president of the Indiana Hospital Association.

Oklahoma City-based OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center is expanding to the northeastern part of the state.

The majority of U.S. adults say they've had a recent annual physical exam, but among those who haven't, scheduling issues were the most common barrier, according to new survey findings from U.S. News and World Report. 

UnitedHealth Group's Optum Virtual Care is shutting down, Endpoints News reported April 24.

Advocate Aurora Health, now part of Advocate Health, plans to sell a remote patient monitoring company it acquired for $290.7 million.

Contract provisions that stick nurses with the cost of training programs if they leave or are terminated before their contracts are up will largely be prohibited under the Federal Trade Commission's April 23 ruling to ban noncompete agreements — a decision National Nurses United is applauding.

More than half of patient portal messages written by artificial intelligence did not require any further editing, but the messages that did posed a risk to patients, according to a study at Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham.

Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare has to face a class-action lawsuit claiming its patient portal shared data with Facebook and other third-party companies, Bloomberg Law reported.

The following hospital and health system CFO moves have been shared with or reported by Becker's this year:

New York City-based NYU Langone Health performed the first combined mechanical heart pump and organ transplant surgery and implanted the second gene-edited pig kidney in the world.

EHR vendor Epic Systems broke ground on its newest campus and is continuing to grow its workforce and customers, The Cap Times reported April 25. 

Lina Khan, head of the Federal Trade Commission, cautioned about the risk of healthcare price fixing driven by advancements in technology, PYMNTS reported April 24.

The FDA approved the first new antibiotic for urinary tract infections in two decades.

Justin Kats was named CFO of Fransciscan Health Crown Point (Ind.) and Franciscan Health Michigan City (Ind.), both part of Mishawaka, Ind.-based Franciscan Health, effective April 8. 

The decadelong reduction in heart failure deaths has "been entirely undone" in recent years, according to a research letter published April 24 in JAMA Network. 

There have been 1,164 mergers among health systems between 2000 and 2020, and a recent study found those transactions increased prices by 5.2%.