Mariah Taylor

In eight years, the share of physicians working for hospitals nearly doubled due to hospital acquisitions of physician practices — and with it came rising prices, a recent study found.

The study, published in July 2025 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, analyzed hospital acquisitions of physician practices between 2008 and 2016. Using data and machine learning algorithms, researchers identified a large number of integration events spanning different competitive circumstances. These were merged with claims data from a large national insurer to study the impact on prices. 

Here are  five findings:

1. Between 2008 and 2016, the share of private physician practices acquired by a hospital rose by 71.5%

2. By 2016, 47.2% of physician practices were owned by a hospital.

3. Two years after a merger, hospital and physicians prices increased by 3.3% and 15.1%, respectively, with no “discernible effects on quality measures,” according to the study’s authors.

4. Price increases were larger among mergers that had a greater scope for foreclosure, whereby physicians’ patients bring their patients into the care of the acquiring hospital, and recapture, when insurers are forced to negotiate “all-or-nothing” deals with hospitals for physician services. 

5. Nearly all of the estimated deal valuations of physician-hospital mergers analyzed in the study fell below the Federal Trade Commission’s Hart-Scott-Rodino merger reporting thresholds.
The post The rise of hospital-physician practice M&A: 5 things to know appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.

Press Ganey found higher scores in patient experience across all care settings in 2025, and a few metrics distinguish top-quartile facilities from the rest, according to a July 21 report. 

“Experience isn’t just a reflection of care — it’s the new frontier of care delivery,” Patrick Ryan, chairman and CEO of Press Ganey, said in a July 21 news release. “The systems that will lead in the next decade are those that approach trust, communication, and consistency not as soft skills, but as hard strategy. Our data makes it clear: when organizations embed experience into the core of how they deliver safe, high-quality care, they earn lasting loyalty and drive better outcomes cross the board.”

To compile its “Patient Experience 2025” report, Press Ganey used data from 10.5 million patient encounters from inpatient HCAHPS, emergency department, medical practice, and OAS CAHPS surveys across all nine American Hospital Association hospital regions. This data includes academic medical centers, and integrated and nonintegrated health systems. The analysis represents more than 2,500 hospitals and 490,000 medical office sites. To analyze safety, the company looked at the experiences of over 16 million patients and the severity of 452,000 safety events. 

Here are nine findings from the report:

1. Subpar experiences were often the result of lapses in reliability, such as unplanned admission, fragmented digital touchpoints and unclear communication. 

2. Organizations that prioritized safety, empathy and operational consistency into daily practices had higher scores in patient trust and outperformed their peers in experience and loyalty metrics.

3. Since the prepandemic baseline, set in 2019, patients’ “likelihood to recommend” scores have risen by 1.7 points in ASCs, 2.8 in medical practices, and 0.5 in EDs. 

4. Inpatient scores saw a 0.9-point increase year over year but are still 2.2 points lower than baseline.

5. Patients with unplanned admissions reported the lowest experience rating and were 16% less likely to recommend the hospital. 

6. CMS recently added “teamwork” to its HCAHPS requirements, which emerged as a top driver for inpatient experience this year.

7. Inpatients who reported feeling “very safe” also reported the highest “likelihood to recommend” scores at 85.3 — compared to a score of 34.6 among patients who said safety faltered. This pattern holds true for patients in medical practices, where scores ranged from 95.1 for those who felt safe to 35.3 for those who didn’t.

8. Practices such as bedside shift reporting, nurse leader visits and international interval rounding are most effective when used to prevent harm and improve trust-building, as opposed to score improvement. 

9. Health systems that integrated equity and patient experience strategies saw higher consistency across all metrics of patient experience and patient loyalty. These hospitals also had the smallest gap between patient experience scores across racial and ethnic groups and were 2.8 times more likely to rank in the top quartile for “likelihood to recommend.”

Read the full report here. 
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Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health has named Phillip Chang, MD, system senior vice president, and chief medical and quality officer.

Dr. Chang will work closely with the system’s chief medical and nursing officers, as well as physician enterprise, quality and safety leaders, to improve patient outcomes and advanced quality across the system, according to a July 15 LinkedIn post. Dr. Chang will also oversee physician and advanced practice provider wellness, engagement, credentialing and more. 

He most recently served as chief medical and quality officer for Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System for three years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
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Among individuals without stable insurance coverage, emergency departments are often the healthcare safety net of last resort — and upcoming cuts to Medicaid could put EDs under more strain. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law July 4, curbs Medicaid spending by $1 trillion through 2034, which is expected to contribute to 11.8 million people without health insurance coverage within the next decade. States already experiencing high ED utilization could face greater strain as more residents without insurance turn to the ED for non-routine or delayed care.

KFF analyzed 2023 community hospital data, the most recent available, from the 1999-2023 American Hospital Association Annual Survey, and compared it to population reports from the Census Bureau.

Here are the states and the District of Columbia ranked by total hospital ED visits per 1,000 population:

West Virginia: 596

North Dakota: 591

Louisiana: 589

Mississippi: 567

Maine: 555

Ohio: 541

Indiana: 539

Kentucky: 514

Missouri: 511

District of Columbia: 500

Pennsylvania: 489

Nebraska: 486

Connecticut: 481

Massachusetts: 473

Tennessee: 468

Arkansas: 466

Rhode Island: 464

Florida: 455

New York: 452

New Hampshire: 446

Kansas: 444

Michigan: 444

Vermont: 439

Delaware: 438

Oklahoma: 437

North Carolina: 432

Virginia: 429

United States: 422

South Carolina: 418

Texas: 416

Illinois: 412

Colorado: 409

Idaho: 407

Alabama: 402

New Mexico: 402

Wyoming: 394

Georgia: 392

Montana: 388

Iowa: 387

Oregon: 386

Wisconsin: 384

South Dakota: 370

New Jersey: 369

Washington: 366

Minnesota: 352

California: 346

Hawaii: 333

Maryland: 303

Utah: 287

Arizona: 281

Alaska: 258

Nevada: 226
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There are hundreds of artificial intelligence tools and technologies on the market right now, which can make it hard for some leaders to determine what is worth investing in. For Nariman Heshmati, MD, chief physician and operations executive at Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Health’s Physician Group, the decision comes down to which tools will improve quality of care “without creating new problems.”

Dr. Heshmati told Becker’s he’s excited for what AI will do in the future, such as summarize  patient charts. His system is also exploring AI for message triage, note generation and visit routing. 

But the technology comes with some uncertainties.

“Part of the challenge is that there are so many players in the AI healthcare space right now,” he said. “So there’s the question of which companies are still going to be around in a year or two and have a viable product. You don’t want to implement something that’s going to be discontinued or unsupported.”

Another important consideration is the accuracy of the product.

“We need to trust not just that the answer [the AI is generating] is right, but that it’s right 100% of the time,” he said. “Up until now, most AI solutions couldn’t show us why they were giving a particular response. Saying ‘it’s mostly reliable’ isn’t enough if we don’t understand how it’s generating the answer.”

However, more AI products are supplying citations to show where its data was pulled from, which allows users to verify and build trust with the program.

“I’m optimistic that things are improving quickly,” he said. “We’re going to see a lot of advancements, but the challenge remains: we don’t yet know which tools will be cost-effective, scalable, and backed by companies that will be around for the long haul. AI really does have the potential to improve how we deliver healthcare. But like anything else, we have to make sure there are no unintended consequences. It has to genuinely improve quality of care without creating new problems.”
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In near tandem with the nationwide shortage of nurses lies a similar shortage of nurse educators, which many in healthcare believe are needed to train the nurses the sector will need. To that end, more systems and nursing programs are creating formal venues to enlarge the nurse educator pipeline.

Like the nurse shortage, universities and nursing programs are facing a nurse faculty shortage that has reduced their capacity to accept and train students. Too few nurses are pursuing advanced degrees and becoming educators in the field, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

So systems are developing programs that boost interest and remove barriers for nurses who want to teach. 

These programs — many of which launched in the last year — range in commitment and scale. Here are a few examples:

For Cleveland-based MetroHealth, bedside nurses are offered guest lecture opportunities in nursing schools.

Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland-based University Hospitals are partnering with three other systems and organizations to launch a summer nursing faculty boot camp.

Chicago-based Rush University College of Nursing has created a new nurse educator certification program.

Baltimore-based University of Maryland Medical System launched the Academy of Clinical Essentials, which embeds nursing students in immersive, semester-long clinical rotations with bedside nurse instructors.

Marion-based Indiana Wesleyan University revamped its nurse educator program to be more accessible, shorter and flexible.

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As Memorial Hermann and Aldine Independent School District’s HEAL high school prepares for its second year of operations, program leaders are surveying the transformation of its inaugural freshman class of students as they “step into the truth” of their career paths.  

The Health Education and Learning high school currently operates on the campus of Nimitz High School. It’s one of 13 health system and school district partnerships backed by $31 million in funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies. The program weaves healthcare education into a standard high school curriculum, with students spending part of their week on-site at Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital in Humble, Texas. Each student chooses one of five healthcare pathways — nursing, pharmacy, physical and occupational therapy, medical imaging or nonclinical administration — and works toward earning an industry-recognized certification by graduation. 

The first class of freshmen started with 152 students and graduated 145. Now those freshmen are moving into their sophomore year of the program, with about 20 new students joining the sophomore cohort. The incoming class of freshman has 190 slots available, and has received over 250 applications, Adrian Bustillos, PhD, chief transformation officer at Aldine ISD, told Becker’s.

The program is supported by 32 teachers that teach the core content, as well as electives like fine arts and sports. Six Memorial Hermann staff members are also regular faces in the classroom, helping students connect their education to real-world application.

The HEAL high school is gearing up to enter its second year, and aims to enroll nearly 800 students by 2028.

“This program is giving us a platform to challenge the status quo,” Caitlin McVey, associate vice president of the Institute for Nursing Excellence at Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System, told Becker’s.

Aldine ISD is the 12th largest in Texas, serving around 57,000 students. About 92% of their students are economically disadvantaged. 

“We’re in a healthcare desert — many families have to leave our boundaries just to access basic health services,” Dr. Bustillos said. “With this partnership, we’re creating pathways to high-wage, in-demand healthcare careers. Students are learning about healthcare, the points of health in a community and seeing real-world applications. Just as importantly, our students will grow into healthcare professionals who look like and understand the communities they serve.”

Becker’s sat down with HEAL high school leaders to learn how the first year went and what changes are coming as the program expands.

The first-year results

Seeing 14-year-olds walking the halls of Memorial Hermann has become a new normal, and the transformation has been incredible, leaders said.

“Seeing them start as 14-year-olds and return as 10th graders, they’re completely transformed,” Bryan Sisk, DNP, RN, senior vice president and chief nursing executive at Memorial Hermann, told Becker’s. “Yes, academics are essential, and we’re not lowering the bar, they’re rising to meet it. But their self-confidence, the mentorship they’re receiving, how they present themselves — it’s all evolving.”

Simple things like eye contact, introducing themselves and greeting people in the hallways are just a few ways students have grown. 

And for some students, this program is more than confidence building. At the beginning of the year, the program held a scrub ceremony where students received their first pair of work scrubs.

“After the scrub ceremony, students visited our Institute for Nursing Excellence, our simulated hospital,” Mr. Sisk said. “When we asked one student what it felt like to walk into the hospital wearing scrubs, she said, ‘I feel like I walked into my truth.’ That stopped me. A year ago, she hadn’t even considered healthcare as a career. Now, it’s not just a possibility — it’s her reality. And she can picture herself in that role.”

Students aren’t just picturing themselves as healthcare professionals, they’re learning the trade from day one. In English, they write about hip replacements. In math, they calculated dosages. On their weekly visit to the hospital, they learn why their education matters and what the real-world implications are. They’re also learning many healthcare processes like HIPAA modules, onboarding steps, vaccine requirements and more. 

Some students are also emerging as leaders. 

“The momentum is so strong that the students actually asked to start a HEAL ambassador program,” Ms. McVey said. “These ambassadors now go into middle schools and talk about the program: what it’s done for them, how yes, it’s hard, but how worth it it is. We’re seeing leadership emerge within the student body.”

But like any new initiative, there were some lessons learned from the first year of operations.

Lessons learned

Mr. Sisk and Ms. McVey pointed to two main lessons learned from the first class of students:

1. The value of embedding dedicated healthcare staff into the high school. The program started with six staff members including nurses, physical therapy, imaging, business and pharmacy professionals.

“They are truly driving this program,” Mr. Sisk said. “When you walk into the school, the students know them. They help shape the experience alongside our education partners. They’re not just guest speakers, they’re a part of the school. That’s been one of the biggest lessons learned: if you want a program like this to succeed, you need a consistent, engaged presence from the healthcare side.”

These team members are essential to connecting curriculum to hospital-based learning and reinforcing what students learn in the classroom, Ms. McVey said.

2. Learning how to interact with teachers, students and parents. “I didn’t even realize how much we’d need to learn until we were in it — how to interact with teachers, how to engage with students,” Mr. Sisk said. “It’s so different from our daily work, but it’s helped me grow both personally and professionally. I think our whole organization has grown from it.”

What’s coming next

Currently, the school is working on a state-of-the-art simulation lab that is an exact replica of Memorial Hermann, so students can practice with the same equipment they see in the hospital.  The organizations are also expanding its mentorship program that pairs students with nurses, physicians, therapists and even healthcare executives.

“We have more mentors than we can match students with. There’s a waitlist for Memorial Hermann employees wanting to participate,” Dr. Bustillos said.

As far as long-term goals, the school district and health system are working on improving postsecondary partnerships so that their pathways connect with a dual-credit opportunity or an industry-based certification. 

This includes finding a way to have 14-year-olds earn college credits while completing high school. 

“We hit barriers,” Mr. Sisk said. “Some [postsecondary] schools said, ‘Well, they’re 14, they can’t get credit,’ simply because no one had asked the question before. But by asking the right questions, and asking them in smart ways, we’ve been able to remove some of those barriers. Our partners have been great about working with us to meet accreditation standards and our internal requirements, especially since students will be moving into patient care settings. So just thinking differently, questioning norms — it’s made a huge difference.” 

The program is also expanding to meet growing demand and provide students with unique experiences every step of the way. 

“We want to make sure 10th graders have new, elevated experiences, not just repeats of what they did in ninth grade,” Ms. McVey said. “That means expanding opportunities.”

This includes adding Houston-based Memorial Hermann Greater Heights as a partnering hospital, as well as providing more advanced opportunities for medical training during summer infusion.

The first dual-cohort Summer Infusion wrapped up in June. There, rising freshmen had the opportunity to go through lab sessions and Life Flight experiences, and sophomores participated in a mock mass casualty drill with community partners. “We’re adapting constantly, and honestly, that adaptability might be one of the program’s biggest strengths,” Mr. Sisk said.
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