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Fifty-nine percent of healthcare executives said in a recent survey that physician specialists are the most difficult clinical job to fill, but the specialty that is most difficult for systems varies by state. Hospitals and health systems are grappling with a national physician shortage. Across all physician specialties in the…

Carl Cameron was promoted to executive vice president and COO of Holyoke, Mass.-based Holyoke Medical Center and Valley Health Systems, according to a May 20 news release shared with Becker’s. Mr. Cameron joined Holyoke Medical Center in 2001 and has held roles including COO, vice president of operations, CIO and…

In 2026, the U.S. prescription drug market is predicted to exceed $1 trillion for the first time, and GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Zepbound and Wegovy are the primary drivers of this growth.   GLP-1s accounted for 14% of U.S. drug spending last year, with these drugs costing $131.9 billion of…

Cardiovascular service lines are growing fast—and so are the data streams they are expected to manage. The remote monitoring landscape—once confined to pacemakers and ICDs—has diversified to include Holter monitors, MCTs, loop recorders, and FDA-approved wearables. Yet, this proliferation of third-party vendors introduces a critical challenge: each new input demands…

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has vetoed two bills that would have created a prescription drug pricing system in the state, arguing similar models in other states have failed to lower drug costs. The legislation, House Bill 483 and Senate Bill 271, would have established a prescription drug affordability board in…

States are advancing legislation to restrict how pharmacy benefit managers operate. In doing so, they are targeting practices such as steering patients to PBM-owned pharmacies, spread pricing, and opaque rebate arrangements that critics say inflate drug costs while squeezing independent pharmacies. The push spans every region, and it is happening…

CMS on May 20 proposed a rule that would cap certain state Medicaid payments and align them more closely with Medicare rates.  The proposed rule would create new limits for Medicaid state-directed payments and certain fee-for-service payments to reduce Medicaid spending by more than $775 billion over 10 years, including…

Clinicians across the U.S. are increasingly seeking union representation, arguing that organizing can help address staffing shortages, burnout and retention challenges that they say ultimately affect patient care. At least 10 groups at hospitals and health systems nationwide have announced plans to unionize or voted to join unions so far…

Providence will shutter most of its insurance business beginning in 2027, ending more than 40 years as a regional payer with 440,000 members. “We are doing this because changes in the healthcare environment, including state and federal regulation, have made it increasingly difficult for regional, not-for-profit health plans like PHP…

U.S. News & World Report said May 20 that it has made significant refinements to its Best Hospitals methodology to reflect changes in care delivery, data availability and measurement science. Six things to know, per U.S. News: 1. Risk-adjusted outcome measures will carry more weight in determining adult specialty rankings…

Fifty-two healthcare companies landed on Forbes’ ninth annual list of America’s Best Employers for New Grads. The ranking, published May 19, was created in partnership with market research firm Statista. It is based on survey responses from more than 100,000 professionals with less than a decade of work experience who…

Most of the top-paying states for nurses, adjusted for cost of living, are in the Midwest or the West, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Becker’s used the latest BLS data, released May 15 and up to date as of May 2025, to determine the hourly pay rate by…

Twenty-three healthcare employers were featured on LinkedIn News’ city-specific top companies lists. The lists use LinkedIn data to analyze key markers of career progression, including ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, educational background and employee presence in the city, according to the May…

Celina, Texas, was the fastest-growing U.S. city in the year ending July 1, 2025, with its population increasing 24.6%, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Dallas-based Methodist Health System met that growth with the spring 2025 opening of the 51-bed Methodist Celina Medical Center — the city’s first hospital and…

Flint, Mich., is the most affordable U.S. city to buy a home, according to a recent ranking from personal finance website WalletHub. Median home sales prices jumped from $313,000 in the first quarter of 2019 to $403,200 in the first quarter of 2026, according to a May 19 WalletHub ranking. …

Ebola is making international headlines again after the World Health Organization declared a global public health emergency, but the CDC said the risk to the U.S. is low.  Here are 10 things hospital leaders need to know about the current outbreak. 1. This is the third time the WHO has…

Leaving the workforce before retirement age could speed up cognitive decline, while working into older ages may help delay it, according to a recent study. Six things to know: 1. Working near retirement age appears to lower the risk of cognitive decline, a precursor to dementia, based on correlational evidence…

Several startups with a footprint in healthcare made CNBC’s annual Disruptor 50 rankings May 19, with one AI giant surpassing a rival in 2026. Anthropic passed OpenAI to rank No. 1 on this year’s list, with both companies recently unveiling healthcare AI offerings. An advisory board weighs the criteria for…

Emory Decatur Hospital in Decatur, Ga., part of Emory Healthcare, has launched the health system’s first residency program for emergency department nurses. The Emergency Nurses Association Nurse Residency Program is also the first of its kind in the Atlanta area, according to a May 18 Emory Healthcare news release. The…

Private insurance prices grew 47% more quickly than Medicare rates over seven years, KFF reported May 18. Healthcare costs are a top concern for systems, patients and lawmakers, and prices vary across regions and hospitals and payers within those regions. High prices can result in higher premiums and cost-sharing obligations,…

Mean annual wages for hospital workers range from $37,080 for maids and housekeeping cleaners to $454,940 for cardiologists, according to newly released federal data. Registered nurses — the nation’s largest healthcare occupation — earned a mean annual wage of $101,420 nationwide, according to May 2025 occupational wage data released May…

Updated May 2026 workforce data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing show men accounted for a smaller share of registered nurses in 2024 than in 2022. Five notes: 1. Men represented 10.4% of registered nurses in 2024, down from 11.2% in 2022, according to data from the National…

California has the highest hourly mean wage for registered nurses in the U.S., while Oregon has the highest hourly mean wage for RNs when adjusted for cost of living, according to data released May 15 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Below are the mean annual and hourly wages for…

Workforce spending remained hospitals’ top expense in 2025, representing 60% of total expenses, according to the American Hospital Association.  Workforce costs rose 5.6% in 2025 as hospitals continued increasing wages and investing in recruitment and retention efforts for nurses, physicians and other staff, according to the AHA’s 2026 “Cost of…