Black River Memorial Hospital and Krohn Clinic are merging to create Black River Health. The decision to merge comes in response to growing health challenges with Jackson County faring worse than the average county in Wisconsin for health outcomes, according to a press release from the health systems. The merger is effective Dec. 30, 2024.
CareTrust REIT and a joint venture partner have reached an agreement to acquire a portfolio of 31 skilled nursing facilities for approximately $500 million, the company's largest acquisition to date. San Clemente, California-based CareTrust anticipates that most of the facilities will be operated by existing partners of the REIT, including The Ensign Group, PACS Group and Links Healthcare Group.
H5N1 bird flu was confirmed in a pig on a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country. Pigs represent a particular concern for the spread of bird flu because they can become co-infected with bird and human viruses, which could swap genes to form a new, more dangerous virus that can more easily infect humans.
University of Chicago Medicine has received a $75 million donation from the AbbVie Foundation to help it build its massive new cancer hospital on the city's South Side. The money will go toward construction of UChicago Medicine's new freestanding hospital — a 575,000-square-foot project that is expected to cost $815 million. The building will be named the AbbVie Foundation Cancer Pavilion, and is slated to open in 2027.
Some Apple AirPods wireless headphones can be used as hearing aids with a new software update available Monday. It's a high-profile move that experts applaud, even if they only reach a small portion of the millions of Americans with hearing loss. An estimated 30 million people — 1 in 8 Americans over the age of 12 — have hearing loss in both ears. Millions would benefit from hearing aids but most have never tried them, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.