The decision to partner with another health system is always a high-stakes decision for a board. The creation of a community foundation is one way to ensure that a health system’s focus on its community remains intact, with new potential to improve the lives of community residents.

This week’s graphic highlights data from the Department of Health and Human Services on the increased number of cyberattacks hitting healthcare providers.

Following this week’s news of Kaiser Permanente’s Risant Health subsidiary closing its acquisition of Geisinger, the graphic below provides a framework for thinking about health system scale.

Hospitals and health systems that participate in the federal 340B Drug Pricing Program are currently facing challenges on multiple fronts, including manufacturer restrictions and program audits, legal challenges, and constantly-evolving federal and state requirements for participation.

The many forces driving some hospitals to financial distress make it impossible to maintain the status quo. Leaders can move beyond a binary close-or-don’t-close decision to reconsider what it means to deliver healthcare in communities that struggle to support a hospital.

Health system leaders can no longer afford to think of APPs as extenders or expensive scribes. They must work to effectively integrate APPs across clinical settings and develop the operational and financial data points needed to monitor the efficacy of that integration.

Steward Health Care files for bankruptcy and plans to sell its hospitals, and Florida sues the Biden administration over a new healthcare anti-discrimination rule.

With Walmart’s announcement last week that it plans to shutter its Walmart Health business, this week’s graphic takes stock of the company’s healthcare delivery journey over nearly the past two decades.