Alarm Raised About Quality, Services From Health Providers Amazon Bought

The Washington Post: Changes At Amazon-Owned Health Services Cause Alarm Among Patients, Employees
Elderly patients used to take cooking classes and do puzzles at Iora Health clinics, which also paid for taxi rides so they wouldn’t miss appointments. The late-night phone calls, free transportation and ability to text with clinical staff helped pull Deborah Wood of Kennesaw, Ga., out of a spiraling health crisis, she said. But since Amazon bought Iora parent company One Medical and rebranded it as One Medical Seniors, appointments have gotten shorter, clinical staff have lost their jobs and some of the unique offerings have disappeared, patients and former employees told The Washington Post in interviews. (O'Donovan, 2/28)

More health care industry updates —

The Mercury News: Kaiser Expects To Launch Construction Of New San Jose Hospital In 2025
Construction on a brand-new Kaiser hospital could begin next year in San Jose, the centerpiece of the health care organization’s plans to replace a 50-year-old medical center and revamp an adjacent campus. Kaiser Permanente plans to develop a modern hospital at its South San Jose medical campus, documents on file with San Jose officials show. The new hospital would replace the existing medical center that was built in 1974. (Avalos, 2/28)

Modern Healthcare: Walgreens’ VillageMD To Close All Illinois Clinics
Walgreens' VillageMD plans to close all its primary care clinics in Illinois in April, abandoning an expansion that was underway in its home state. The six clinics that will close April 19 are all in the Chicago area, according to VillageMD's website. Five are stand-alone locations and one is attached to a Walgreens store. The one co-located clinic in Elk Grove Village opened just six months ago. A VillageMD spokesperson confirmed the closures. (Hudson, 2/28)

Modern Healthcare: Henry Ford Health Expansion Lands $3B For Detroit Campus
Henry Ford Health's $3 billion Detroit expansion is taking another step forward. After hours of debate, the Detroit City Council on Tuesday night approved community benefits and rezoning requests for the project, which was announced last February. The project, a partnership between Henry Ford, Michigan State University and Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, will invest close to $3 billion into hospital expansions, a medical research center, housing developments, retail and public spaces around Henry Ford’s Detroit campus over the next 10 to 15 years. (Hudson, 2/28)

Modern Healthcare: Northwell Health, Nuvance Health Plan To Merge By End Of 2024
Northwell Health plans to acquire Nuvance Health in a deal that would create a system with 28 hospitals and more than 1,000 care sites across New York and Connecticut. Under the proposed no-cash deal announced Wednesday, Northwell said it would make "significant investments" in Nuvance, but an exact sum was not provided. Nuvance President and CEO Dr. John Murphy said the system has requested hundreds of millions of dollars from Northwell to support programs and facilities. (Hudson, 2/28)

Modern Healthcare: How Intermountain, Tenet, SMM Are Growing Outpatient Care
Providers are making big investments to quickly bulk up outpatient offerings as more patients seek less invasive and less time-consuming procedures closer to home. Orthopedic, gastrointestinal, urologic, cardiac and ear, nose and throat procedures—once labeled "hospital-only" and sometimes requiring multiple-night stays—are increasingly being offered in ambulatory surgery centers, allowing patients to go home that day. In response, providers are adding more of the facilities. (Hudson, 2/28)

Modern Healthcare: Epic, Google Cloud Partner With Highmark Health
Highmark Health is partnering with electronic health record system company Epic and Google's cloud arm to streamline prior authorizations, the companies said Monday. Pittsburgh-based Highmark's health plan is going to put its version of Epic's Payer Platform, a software program that gives payers access to EHR data, on the Google Cloud. By doing this, Highmark Health's chief analytics officer Richard Clarke said the company can use Google Cloud's data analytics capabilities to generate insights on a patient's insurance coverage ... and more. (DeSilva, 2/28)

KFF Health News: Hacking At UnitedHealth Unit Cripples A Swath Of The US Health System: What To Know
Early in the morning of Feb. 21, Change Healthcare, a company unknown to most Americans that plays a huge role in the U.S. health system, issued a brief statement saying some of its applications were “currently unavailable.” By the afternoon, the company described the situation as a “cyber security” problem. Since then, it has rapidly blossomed into a crisis. (Tahir, 2/29)