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Ending almost two years in limbo, the financially beleaguered Daughters of Charity Health System on Monday announced it has closed a $260 million investment deal with an East Coast hedge fund that will keep one of the Bay Area's oldest hospital chains afloat for at least three more years. The news came 11 days after California Attorney General Kamala Harris gave her conditional approval for the largest nonprofit hospital transaction in state history, and the first to involve a hedge fund. (Seipel, 12/14)

Nineteen groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter Monday to drugstore chain Walgreens expressing concerns about the company's plans for a Catholic hospital to run its in-store health clinics in Washington state and Oregon. In the letter, the organizations asked if the clinics would allow access to contraception, abortion drugs and prescriptions to help terminally ill patients end their own lives, which is legal in both states. (Blankinship, 12/15)

Four hospitals in the Charlotte region will be docked 1 percent of Medicare payments in 2016 because they exceeded federal standards for infections and other safety factors. The penalty, in its second year, is part of the Affordable Care Act’s punishment-and-reward system created to keep down unnecessary medical spending and control health care costs. (Garloch, 12/14)