UMass Memorial Medical Center

The state's Health Policy Commission has signed off on UMass Memorial Medical Center's plan to buy a minority stake in Quest Diagnostics' Massachusetts subsidiary.

Hospital administrators — and the public — now have a more complete picture on Massachusetts hospital readmissions, after the state Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) last week released the first report showing readmissions rates for all insurance payers.

After several years of a relationship that many would describe as adversarial, UMass Memorial Health Care and a key union turned a critical corner last week when they reached a one-year contract agreement for the thousands of nurses who work at the system's UMass Memorial Medical Center campuses in Worcester.

More than 2,200 unionized nurses at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester have voted to ratify one-year contracts after negotiations that the union called “relatively smooth.”

The Massachusetts Medical Society has kicked off a campaign aimed at promoting safe opioid prescription practices among Bay State physicians, the latest in a collection of efforts by health care stakeholders to reduce the availability of opioids. The new guidelines, available on the Massachusetts Medical Society website, are intended to reduce the supply of opioids, which are frequently accessed by people other than the patients to whom they're prescribed, said Dr. Dennis Dimitri, president of the medical society. Dimitri cited statistics from the national Centers for Disease Control that more than 80 percent of people who abuse painkillers are using medicine prescribed to someone else.

University of Massachusetts Medical School professor Job Dekker has won a coveted scientific honor. He has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator, the medical school's seventh.

UMass Memorial Health Care will open several urgent care centers in Central Massachusetts this year, which will help ease pressure on the health care system's emergency rooms.

Brian Burke, a 76-year-old Warren resident, is well acquainted with the toll major surgery takes on the body.

(Updated Friday at 6:15 p.m.) A plan to consolidate two patient-care units at Clinton Hospital is meeting with opposition from the union that represents its nurses.

Edward Moore, president and CEO of the Harrington HealthCare System, has been keeping a close eye on developments with Partners HealthCare, the enormous and fast-growing eastern Massachusetts health care system. Although Partners recently scaled back its latest expansion effort, Moore is not letting down his guard.