South Region news and information

A medical school partnership between Ochsner Health System and an Australian university has graduated its first nine students.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Florida hospital officials are lobbying lawmakers to expand Medicaid coverage to roughly 1 million residents under the federal healthcare law. A rally last week in Tallahassee came a day after a Senate panel voted against traditional Medicaid expansion and instead...
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Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who swiftly rejected Medicaid expansion under health reform after last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed states to do so, called for the state to expand the safety net program for three years, or as long as federal tax dollars cover all the costs.
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IRVING, Texas—Christus Health, a Catholic not-for-profit health system, announced that it plans to enter into a joint venture with Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, a Chilean university owned by the Catholic Church. The memorandum of understanding signed by the two provides for...
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NORMAN, Okla.—The Federal Trade Commission bestowed a rare approval on a proposed arrangement between a large group of Oklahoma doctors and a local hospital, even though people involved with the new network admit that they plan to raise some prices. In a 21-page advisory opinion, FTC...
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ATLANTA—SunLink Health Systems is planning to delist its shares and sell underperforming facilities. All four of its hospitals are currently underperforming and it has hired advisers to evaluate the sale of at least two of them, the system said in a news release. SunLink's hospitals...
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BATON ROUGE, La.—Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration scrapped plans to shutter Louisiana's Medicaid hospice program in February. Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein announced the reversal as hospice program supporters were gathering for a candlelight vigil on the state...
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Residents of the Mississippi Delta region are more likely to die from a number of conditions, including diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and federal officials are trying to improve efforts to reduce those disparities by taking a more focused approach.
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NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt University Medical Center is further expanding its reach across the state with a new affiliation agreement with West Tennessee Healthcare, Jackson. The deal represents 909-bed Vanderbilt's fifth affiliation in the region since October 2011. The academic medical...
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MOBILE, Ala.—Mobile Infirmary Medical Center quickly resumed normal operations following a Christmas Day tornado that caused external damage and temporarily knocked out power. The 493-bed facility, the largest in the southern part of the state, relied on its backup generator in the...
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