Former Phoenix Children’s CEO Publishes Leadership Book
Former Phoenix Children’s CEO Burl Stamp has authored “Becoming a Better Boss,” a leadership guide released May 12 by Ripples Media. Drawing on his tenure as a hospital CEO and clinical services executive, Stamp blends research with practical tools to help managers build trust, communicate clearly, and steer teams through change. The book argues that employee turnover stems more from poor leadership than from the workplace itself. Stamp now leads the consulting firm Stamp&Chase, positioning the book as a bridge between academic insight and frontline hospital management.
Turnover Runs High at 22% for Early-Career Nurses: Press Ganey
Press Ganey’s State of Nursing 2026 report finds U.S. hospitals lose $5.19 million per year on average due to registered nurse turnover. Overall nursing turnover remains at 17%, unchanged from prior years, while early‑career nurses experience a 22% departure rate. Millennials,...
PA Workforce Surpasses 201,000: Report
The National Commission on Certification of PAs reports that the U.S. physician‑assistant workforce reached 201,038 at the end of 2025, a 5.9% increase over the prior year and more than double the 2013 figure. The density rose to 59 PAs...
Entry-Level Hiring Drops at Top Employers: LinkedIn
LinkedIn data shows U.S. entry‑level hiring fell 6% between Dec 2025 and Feb 2026 versus the same period a year earlier. Among LinkedIn’s Top Companies 2026, the share of entry‑level hires slipped from 40.3% in 2016 to 37.2% in 2025, while median...
Ascension Texas Hospital Names Chief Clinical Officer
Ascension Texas has named Dr. Joshua Pozos as its new chief clinical officer, overseeing clinical strategy and medical operations across the Texas market. Dr. Pozos previously served as chief medical officer at Ascension Seton Hays in Austin and brings experience...
Building Winning Digital Health Strategies for Patient-Centered Care — Lessons From 3 Health Systems
Health systems are flooded with digital health pilots, but most fail to improve outcomes because technology often clashes with real‑world clinician workflows and patient behavior. At Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting, leaders from Loretto Hospital, InterSystems, Emory Healthcare and University of...
Advocate Health Speeds up Prior Authorizations with AI: 5 Notes
Advocate Health has integrated an AI‑driven module into its Epic EHR to automate prior‑authorization workflows for specialty medications. The new system replaces traditional phone and fax processes with digital questionnaires and AI‑generated draft responses. Staff time per authorization fell from...
The Best CEOs Say These 3 Words: ‘I Don’t Know’
Healthcare CEOs are embracing humility, openly saying “I don’t know,” to navigate mounting financial, workforce and regulatory pressures. Corewell Health’s decision to partner with Quest Diagnostics in a 51%/49% lab joint venture exemplifies this shift from ownership to collaboration. Leaders...
Women CIOs Leading Major Health Systems
Women are increasingly steering IT strategy at the nation’s largest health systems, with a growing roster of female chief information officers. Notable leaders include Bobbie Byrne at Advocate Health, Paola Arbour at Tenet Healthcare, and Sarah Hatchett at Cleveland Clinic,...
How Ascension Taps Nurse Scientists for Patient Care Wins
Ascension, a St. Louis health system, has built a National Nurse Research Affinity Group and employs four practice‑based PhD‑trained nurse scientists to translate frontline ideas into measurable care improvements. In fiscal 2026 the program generated $1.02 million in grants, launched 109...
California’s Uninsured Population May Double by 2030: Report
A Legislative Analyst’s Office report warns that California’s uninsured population could double from roughly 2 million today to about 4 million by 2030. The surge is tied to new Medicaid work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks under HR 1, which may also...
What’s Driving Physicians to Early Retirement
Physicians are exiting clinical practice earlier than ever, with the average retirement age now 48.1 years—nine years younger than in 2008. A study of 971 inactive doctors by the American Medical Association found administrative burdens and stress each motivated roughly...
12 Recent Hospital, Health System President Exits
Becker’s Hospital Review reports at least 50 hospital and health‑system presidents have exited in 2025, a pace that underscores a broader leadership churn. Departures include retirements, moves to new CEO or COO roles, and internal transitions within systems. The president...
32 Health Systems Spending $5B on Cancer Care
U.S. health systems are collectively earmarking more than $5 billion for cancer‑care expansion, with 32 organizations announcing projects that range from modest renovation grants to multi‑hundred‑million new facilities. Investments span new inpatient hospitals, outpatient centers, imaging suites, immunotherapy labs and specialized...
Sanford, North Memorial Planned Combination Adds to Minnesota Healthcare Deal Wave
Sanford Health and North Memorial Health signed a definitive agreement to merge into a single nonprofit system, creating a major Minnesota healthcare combination. The combined entity will invest $600 million in the state, modernize Robbinsdale Hospital and double the size of...
UT Austin Launches Epic Ahead of New Academic Medical Center
The University of Texas at Austin launched Epic’s ambulatory electronic health record on April 6, positioning the system for a seamless Day 1 go‑live when its new academic medical center opens by 2030. The $2.5 billion Dell Medical Center will house a new...
Ohio System Names COO
Lima Memorial Health System in Ohio appointed Burlin Sherrick as its new vice president and chief operating officer, effective June 1. Sherrick previously served as executive director of ancillary services and oversaw multiple clinical and operational service lines. He will replace...
Buy, Sell or Fight: The New Calculus of Health System Growth
Health systems are abandoning blanket scale strategies in favor of market‑by‑market decisions, either divesting, acquiring or litigating to secure preferred territories. Leaders at CommonSpirit, Community Health Systems and Providence have announced multiple hospital sales, while Atrium Health and WakeMed unveiled...
OpenAI’s Growing Healthcare Footprint
In the first four months of 2026, OpenAI launched a suite of healthcare products, including ChatGPT Health, OpenAI for Healthcare, ChatGPT for Clinicians, and the GPT‑Rosalind biology model, and announced a $60 million acquisition of health‑data startup Torch. The moves place...
Why Cook County Health’s Medicaid Coverage Loss Strategy Is Drawing Attention
Cook County Health, one of the nation’s largest public health systems, launched the Get Medicaid Facts microsite and a free communications toolkit to help Illinois residents navigate upcoming Medicaid eligibility changes. The initiative targets roughly 400,000 potential coverage losses projected...
Akron Children’s Chosen for Former Ohio College Campus Site
Akron Children’s Hospital won the bid for the former Notre Dame College campus, a nearly 50‑acre property in South Euclid, Ohio. The health system plans to convert the site into a hub for pediatric specialty services, extending its footprint in...
The Week in Hospital M&A
Hospital mergers accelerated this week as Atrium Health and WakeMed announced a $2 billion merger to broaden North Carolina care, while UPMC signed a definitive agreement to acquire CommonSpirit’s Trinity Health System in Ohio. A lawsuit in Tallahassee seeks to block...
Willis Knighton Health Taps AI Scribe Vendor
Willis Knighton Health, a four‑hospital network in Shreveport, Louisiana, has chosen Commure as its enterprise ambient AI scribe vendor. The partnership integrates Commure’s AI‑driven documentation tool with the system’s Meditech Expanse EHR. A seven‑specialty pilot showed 88% of providers experienced...
‘Financially and Operationally Unsustainable’: North Carolina Hospital to Drop Blue Cross Blue Shield, UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage Plans
CarolinaEast Medical Center, a 350‑bed hospital in New Bern, North Carolina, announced it will terminate its contracts with Blue Cross Blue Shield and UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plans effective July 1. The hospital cited burdensome payment policies, frequent claim denials, and reimbursement...
Healthcare Adds 37,300 Jobs in April: 4 Things to Know
Healthcare employment rose by 37,300 jobs in April, aligning with the sector’s 12‑month average of 32,000 monthly gains, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ambulatory services led the surge with 18,200 new positions, while hospitals added 4,300 and...
AI Struggles with Basic Data Tasks for Hospital Administrators: Study
A study by Mount Sinai and Mayo Clinic evaluated nine large language models on two basic administrative data tasks using 50,000 emergency department records. Simple prompts like “how many patients were admitted?” yielded poor accuracy across all models. Adding chain‑of‑thought...
What Intermountain’s CEO Didn’t Anticipate About Its Epic EHR Launch
Intermountain Health completed the largest single‑site Epic EHR rollout in September 2024, migrating all 34 hospitals and 400 clinics at once rather than in phases. CEO Rob Allen chose the “big‑bang” approach to avoid a multi‑year fragmented transition that would...
HCA, Tenet, CHS and UHS Stand Firm on 2026 Financial Projections After Q1
The four largest for‑profit health systems—HCA, Tenet, Community Health Systems (CHS) and Universal Health Services (UHS)—reaffirmed their 2026 financial guidance after reporting Q1 results. HCA posted $1.62 B net income and expects $6.5‑$7 B net income in 2026, while Tenet’s net income...
Pharmaceutical Supply Chain’s Strategic Moment: Lessons From Health System Leaders
Health system leaders at Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting highlighted a turning point in pharmaceutical distribution, emphasizing that poor data quality hampers AI forecasting and that clean, centralized inventory data is now a prerequisite. Executives described initiatives such as RFID deployments...
City of Hope Appoints Regional CIO
David Strickland has been named regional CIO of City of Hope, overseeing technology strategy for its cancer‑center sites in Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix. He arrives from a 20‑year tenure at Kaiser Permanente, where he most recently served as vice president...
From 18 to 42 Epic Modules: 7 Notes on St. Luke’s EHR
St. Luke’s University Health Network has expanded its Epic electronic health record from 18 to 42 modules over the past decade, adding extensive clinical, financial and analytics capabilities. The health system delivered more than 121,000 Epic training classes to its 41,000...
What’s the Latest on Prior Authorization Reform?
Prior‑authorization reform is gaining traction as roughly 50 insurers covering 257 million Americans pledged to simplify requirements, cutting 11% of requests—about 6.5 million—since June. An AHIP‑Blue Cross survey shows a 15% drop for Medicare Advantage and a new 90‑day continuity‑of‑care rule for...
How Michigan Medicine-Sparrow Merger ‘Beat the Odds’ on Cost, Quality
University of Michigan Health merged with Sparrow Health System in April 2023, forming a $7 billion, 11‑hospital network. The combined entity reported measurable gains in clinical quality, operational efficiency, and care coordination, challenging the prevailing view that hospital consolidations raise costs...
Why the AI-Workforce Dilemma Looks Different for Health System CEOs
CEOs are split between cutting jobs or using AI to make existing staff do more, with no near‑term hiring plans. While tech firms like Coinbase are slashing headcount, many health system leaders are choosing the opposite path, leveraging AI to...
Regional One Health CEO on $900M Memphis Hospital Project: ‘We Want to Be the Impetus for Change’
Regional One Health received certificate‑of‑need approval to build a $900 million, 315‑350‑bed hospital in Memphis, adjacent to its historic Regional Medical Center. The existing campus, with facilities dating from the 1940s to the 1980s, is deemed beyond its useful life and...
Albany Med Taps Chief of Staff
Albany Med Health System has named Dr. Brittany Sheehy senior vice president and chief of staff. She will report to President and CEO Dan Pickett and help drive the system’s ambition to be the region’s first‑choice provider by 2030. Sheehy...
Moffitt Cancer Center Raises Operating Margin to 7.3% in Q3
Moffitt Cancer Center reported operating income of $63.7 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, delivering a 7.3% operating margin—up from $40.2 million and a 5.2% margin a year earlier. Total operating revenue rose 12.8% year‑over‑year to $868.4 million, with patient service...
How AmSurg Went From Bankruptcy to a $3.9B Ascension Deal
AmSurg, once the nation’s largest ambulatory surgery center (ASC) operator, survived a cascade of ownership changes, a leveraged‑buyout by KKR and Envision’s 2023 Chapter 11 filing. After splitting from Envision and rebuilding its platform under new creditor Pacific Investment Management, the...
HCA’s Mission Health to Pay Hourly Workers in $1.56M Wage Settlement
HCA Healthcare’s Mission Health agreed to a $1.56 million settlement to resolve a class‑action lawsuit alleging time‑rounding and automatic meal‑break deductions that shortchanged hourly staff. The settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn, covers current and former non‑exempt employees...
5 Steps for a Quieter Hospital: AHA
The American Hospital Association released five evidence‑based steps to curb noise in hospitals, emphasizing quiet hours, sleep protocols, noise‑aware construction, frontline education, and night‑round inspections. Northwell Health’s quiet‑hour policy lifted its HCAHPS "quiet at night" score by 30 percentile points,...
The Current State of the Physician Workforce: 9 Notes
The Health Resources and Services Administration projects a shortfall of 141,160 full‑time‑equivalent physicians by 2038, underscoring a deepening workforce gap. Hospital systems are increasingly recruiting without higher salaries, emphasizing culture, autonomy and personalized outreach. Visa processing delays have sidelined over...
Establishing Good Governance: Start with the Important Basics and Play the Long Game
Healthcare organizations increasingly recognize that robust board governance is essential for navigating financial strain, regulatory change, and emerging technologies like AI. The article outlines four foundational practices: establishing a Governance and Nominating committee, conducting biennial self‑evaluations, implementing proactive succession planning...
Mission, Margin and a Midterm Clock: Healthcare Signals to Watch
Healthcare leaders this week wrestled with the tension between mission and margin. Northwell Health accepted a 1.1% operating margin to fund a new behavioral‑health tower, while Epic’s founder emphasized profit as a side effect of a $6.7 billion revenue business. Tenet...
South Dakota Hospital Joins Monument Health
Rapid City Medical Center (RCMC) officially became part of Monument Health on May 1, after a letter of intent was signed in late January. The integration adds RCMC to Monument Health’s five‑hospital network and will extend the system’s services to...
Nemours Children’s Health Breaks Ground on Multispecialty Facility
Nemours Children’s Health broke ground on a new 34,000‑square‑foot multispecialty pediatric facility in Viera, Melbourne, Florida. The center will host roughly two dozen services, ranging from allergy and cardiology to oncology and orthopedics. Construction is set to begin this summer...
CMS’ Medicare Provider Directory Released Social Security Numbers: Washington Post
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) inadvertently exposed dozens of healthcare providers' Social Security numbers in its publicly accessible Medicare Advantage provider directory. The Washington Post discovered the leak after downloading the database, which had been open for...
2 Post-Acute Groups React to Bill to Improve CNA Training
The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living praised the reintroduced Ensuring Seniors’ Access to Quality Care Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at easing certified nursing assistant (CNA) shortages. The legislation would let nursing homes resume in‑house...
32 Hospitals Closing Departments or Ending Services
Since the start of 2024, Becker’s Hospital Review has documented 32 U.S. hospitals shutting down or scaling back specific departments, ranging from burn units and obstetrics to emergency and pediatric services. The closures span 20 states and are driven by...
Why Digital Health Initiatives Fail: 35 Healthcare Leaders Weigh In
A survey of 35 health‑care executives reveals that many digital health projects—patient portals, EHR interoperability, AI tools, remote monitoring, and staffing algorithms—have fallen short of expectations. Leaders cite insufficient change management, lack of clinician trust, poor workflow integration, and inadequate...
Navigating Uncertainty: How to Scale Intelligent Care and Make It Stick
Health systems are grappling with a flood of digital tools, but the real hurdle is building disciplined, organization‑wide intelligent care models. At Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting, Huron and Tampa General leaders outlined a three‑pillar framework—operations hub, virtual care, and smart...