Workforce

In early January, Blue Shield of California proposed rate hikes for nearly 200,000 individual policy holders that would see some members' premiums jump as much as 59 percent on March 1.

Healthcare trends starting to follow other industries.

After more than a month of corporate chess that saw Community Health Systems launch a $3.3 billion hostile takeover bid for hospital operator Tenet Healthcare, things have quieted down.

Ambulance operator and physician services company Emergency Medical Services is being acquired by private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC for $3.2 billion.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United and Kaiser Permanente have reached tentative agreement on a new three-year contract for 17,000 registered nurses and nurse practitioners covering 61 locations in northern and central California.

Hospital operator HCA, Inc., has announced an immediate internal reorganization that includes the promotion of the company's chief financial officer to president.

The U.S. healthcare sector continued its expansion in early 2011, with employment increasing in January by approximately 10,600 jobs.

A recent study appearing in the February issue of Health Affairs found that 2008 starting salaries for male doctors outstripped the starting salaries of their female counterparts by an average of $16,816 a year. Further, the gap has grown steadily since 1999, when the data showed a difference of only $3,600 in starting salaries.

Private sector healthcare employment in the United States reached a high of 10.7 percent of total employment, according to a new report from the Altarum Institute's Center for Studying Health Spending.

Kronos, a global provider of workforce management solutions for several industries, has enhanced its healthcare vertical with the planned acqusition of API Healthcare, a Wisconsin-based developer of software that automates staffing and scheduling, patient classification, human resources, recruiting, payroll and staffing agencies.