The Justice Department has withdrawn its appeal to block UnitedHealth Group's $7.8 billion acquisition of Change Healthcare, Reuters reported March 21. 

As the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions begins to develop bipartisan legislation to curb the healthcare workforce crisis, the American Hospital Association is urging it to take precise measures to sustainably address the "national staffing emergency that could jeopardize access to high-quality, equitable care for patients," according to a March 20 letter.

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Spectrum Health has agreed to pay $6 million to settle an alleged violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, Pension and Investments reported March 20.

From using quantum computing to screen and optimize drugs, to using quantum-enhanced prediction models for cardiovascular disease, Cleveland Clinic and IBM's 10-year Discovery Accelerator partnership is using artificial intelligence, quantum computing and cloud technologies to work on projects that aim to advance the pace of biomedical research.

From decreasing inpatient volumes to reimbursement challenges and rising demand for outpatient care, various factors lead hospitals to shut down or enter bankruptcy. 

Forty-five percent of women forgo preventive healthcare, according to a recent poll conducted by the Alliance for Women's Health and Prevention and Ipsos. Millicent Gorham hopes to see those numbers fall. 

Chicago-based Rush University Medical Center will build a new $70 million, 60,000-square-foot outpatient facility at a former Sears site on the West Side, NBC Chicago reported March 21.

Governments around the world could stand to learn a thing or two from firefighters when it comes to preparing for infectious disease outbreaks, Bill Gates wrote in an op-ed published March 19 in The New York Times. 

Stonish Pierce was named president and CEO of Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health's Georgia Region, which includes Athens, Ga.-based St. Mary's Health Care System and Mercy Care in Atlanta.

Here are four health systems that launched, expanded or announced plans to launch a "hospital-at-home" program:

Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare developed its own proprietary mental health app at the outset of COVID-19 in early 2020, to fulfill a need hospital leadership saw during a "very dark time in healthcare."

Several health systems have faced lawsuits regarding data breach incidents. 

From staffing shortages to burnout, multiple factors have damaged the nurse-physician dynamic over the last few years — but that relationship can be fixed, Angel Mena, MD, and Ali Morin, MSN, RN, wrote in an article on MedPage Today's KevinMD.

A comatose woman will not be sent to the Dominican Republic by the Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest administration, The Morning Call reported March 10.

Meade, Kan.-based Artesian Valley Health System has named Dawn Unruh, MSN, RN, its next CEO. 

Members of UE Local 1004 held a strike March 20 at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia, Calif., according to The Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

Bedford, N.H.-based SolutionHealth has reached an agreement with New Hampshire to operate a new $60 million behavioral health hospital in the southern part of the state, The New Hampshire Union Leader reported March 20.

Members of the Florida Senate Health Policy Committee voted unanimously March 20 to advance a bill that would enhance criminal penalties for people who knowingly commit assault or battery upon workers at a hospital. 

In advance of the ending of the COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11, the FDA will end some of the 72 pandemic-related guidance policies and keep some in place for an additional 180 days after the PHE ends, according to a notice in the March 13 Federal Register. 

Georgia's lieutenant governor is pressuring the state's House to pass a measure allowing hospitals to be built in smaller counties without applying for a certificate of need, which would greenlight a new hospital in his home county, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported March 20.