Strategic Planning

So far wildfires have not forced any hospital evacuations, but they are ready if they have to.

With giant commercial health insurers announcing plans to merge, and experts predicting more consolidation, healthcare providers will be weighing their options when it comes to price negotiations.

System adapts car maker's production system for healthcare, changing longstanding practices such as how to store equipment, schedule surgeries and discharge patients.

The companies said the deal will make them better able to improve their post-acute care services and create better value of care for their partner hospitals and clinicians, which in the age of value-based reimbursements will improve bottom lines for all involved.

Community Health Systems is spinning off a group of rural hospitals and aiming to compete in larger metropolitan areas.

The Virginia Mason Institute, part of the Virginia Mason Health System, will be working with five hospitals within England's National Health Service Trust Development Authority.

The insurer's rise, fall and later rebound poses a cautionary tale in today's consolidating healthcare market. And some of the strategies behind Aetna's $37 billion takeover of Humana invoke themes from the failed 1990s-era HMO empire.

The economic collapse in 2008 changed everything for the new CFO Amy Floria, plunging Goshen, both the city and hospital, into crisis. But smart cost management has helped the system bounce back.

There's a crisis in rural health, and while the future for these smaller, remote hospitals may seem bleak, experts see a major change in the model to keep these providers afloat.

One fear is there will be added pressure to increase direct federal subsidies for additional exchange customers, possibly creating a new kind of entitlement program.