Integration & Physician Issues

The Texas legislature has approved a 500 percent increase in funding for the Physician Education Loan Repayment Program, according to a Dallas/Fort Worth Healthcare Daily report.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio has started an emergency medicine residency program, according to a San Antonio Express-News report.

Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives has formed a new management- services organization, Catholic Health Initiatives Physician Services, to deliver business functions and physician-management services under a national organization to eight divisions.

A hematology and oncology group, comprised of six physicians, has joined White Plains (N.Y.) Hospital Physician Associates, the division of White Plains Hospital that aligns local physicians with hospital services.

Aetna has announced the launch of a patient-centered medical home program in Massachusetts.

Banner Health is currently acquiring full ownership of Union Hills Surgery Center in Glendale, Ariz., and plans to operate it as the Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center's outpatient surgery department, according to a YourWestValley.com report.

Networking with colleagues is physicians' most preferred job hunting method, whereas social media is much less utilized when searching for a practice, according to a survey from The Medicus Firm.

New physician interns at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago get a three-day crash course in treating patients at intern "boot camp," a program recently profiled in The New York Times.

HealthCare Midwest, a multispecialty group with 80 care providers in Kalamazoo, Mich., is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bronson Healthcare, a nonprofit, community-governed system also in Kalamazoo.

Wyoming had the lowest number of professionally active primary care physicians in 2012, according to State Health Facts, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.