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The rise of mega-hospitals
By Michelle Crouch When it comes to growth, it seems like hospitals can’t get enough of it. Across the country, a tidal wave of hospital mergers and acquisitions in recent years has created multi-billion-dollar hospital giants that serve large swaths of the population. For example, just in North Carolina: In all, U.S. health systems announced…
Inside Charlotte’s private cadaver lab
Editor’s Note: Some readers may find images of bodies in this story disturbing. By Michelle Crouch In a nondescript office building near the Charlotte airport last month, adults clad in blue gowns crowded around the body of a woman who had died of cardiovascular disease. An instructor gently pressed her gloved finger against the woman’s…
After Appalachian hospitals merged into a monopoly, their ERs slowed to a crawl
By Brett Kelman and Samantha Liss KFF Health News In the small Appalachian city of Bristol, Virginia, City Council member Neal Osborne left a meeting on the morning of Jan. 3 and rushed himself to the hospital. Osborne, 36, has Type 1 diabetes. His insulin pump had malfunctioned, and without a steady supply of this…
Does NC need licensure reciprocity for dentists and hygienists?
By Anne Blythe As many states struggle with workforce shortages across the health care industry, there’s a national effort to give dentists and dental hygienists more authority to work in multiple states without going through a time-consuming licensure process in each one. Two licensing compacts are being floated, one by the Council of State Governments…
Broadband access, a lifeline in rural N.C., could diminish unless Congress acts
By Jaymie Baxley The end of a federal program that provides internet subsidies to low-income families could leave hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians without access to online health services. Nearly 900,000 households across the state participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program, a $14.2 billion federal program created through a sweeping infrastructure package approved by…
What HCA has told feds it’s doing to fix staffing issues at Mission Hospital. Why nurses say it’s not happening.
By Grace Vitaglione Carolina Public Press HCA Healthcare, which owns Mission Hospital in Asheville, had to submit an amended plan of correction to regulators March 13, which the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved in a notice to Mission Hospital CEO Chad Patrick. That plan was made public March 20. HCA’s amended plan…
