Rural hospitals are finding ways to tie themselves to larger systems in 2026 without surrendering ownership. Since July, at least three critical access hospitals have entered or approved management or affiliation agreements with larger systems. In each, Lakeland Community Hospital…
Rural Health
As rural and regional hospitals head into 2027, their leaders are moving away from volume as the main path to revenue. Instead, many are focused on keeping care close to home, reducing outmigration and capturing the revenue they have already…
Most rural physician vacancies are identified late and never formally priced, according to a survey of rural healthcare administrators and clinicians from Jackson Physician Search, LocumTenens.com and MGMA. Three-quarters of administrators surveyed reported a consequential physician vacancy in the past…
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…
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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…