The wave of maternity service closures has shown no signs of slowing down in 2026. As hospitals continue to grapple with persistent financial pressures, staffing shortages and falling birth rates, more facilities weigh ending labor and delivery services. The closures…
Rural Health
States are earmarking specific slices of their Rural Health Transformation Program dollars for technology upgrades, service expansions and workforce pipeline development. CMS has announced 21 such efforts over the past month. Each state’s full fiscal year 2026 award was set…
After a brief post-pandemic lull, hospital consolidation is accelerating again, with large health systems expanding across state lines, absorbing independent hospitals and reshaping regional care markets. From portfolio resets and strategic exits to cross-market mergers and billion-dollar investments, these moves…
Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health has selected Oracle to standardize its clinical, financial and operational technology. Building on its existing use of Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, Quorum will adopt Oracle Health EHR, Oracle Health Clinical AI Agent, Oracle Health Patient Accounting,…
More than 150 independent rural hospitals across eight states have banded together into clinically integrated networks over the past three years, betting that shared scale, data and negotiating leverage can keep them out of the arms of consolidating systems and…
Advertisement
West Des Moines, Iowa-based UnityPoint Health selected Jenn Crimmins for the newly created role of executive director of rural health partnerships. Ms. Crimmins most recently served as vice president of clinic operations in the Fort Dodge Market, according to a…
Rural hospitals face serious and growing challenges. Hospital closures, financial pressures and workforce shortages are forcing patients in many communities to travel farther and wait longer for essential services. These problems deserve urgent attention and real solutions. But too often…
Here is a sentence I wish someone would carry into every room where rural health care gets decided: the best care is often the care that stays home, and it costs the system less, not more. I have spent my…
Most health systems that launch insurance arms do so to capture margin. Albert Wright Jr. built one to give it away. Peak Health, a provider-sponsored health plan created by Morgantown, W.Va.-based WVU Medicine, is structured as a joint venture with…
Albert Wright Jr. has led Morgantown-based WVU Medicine for 12 years and has grown from an academic medical center into a 25-hospital health system operating across West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The growth is not incidental. WVU Medicine…