���ϳԹ���

Federal agents briefly detained former Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre early last week, served him with a search warrant, and seized his phone — the latest sign that a federal corruption probe is focused on the health care chain’s embattled founder, according to three people briefed on the matter. Another Steward executive, Armin Ernst, a Brookline resident who leads Steward’s international entity, was also recently visited by federal investigators and had his cellphone seized, two of the people briefed told the Globe. (Krueger, Serres and McCarthy, 11/25)

After weeks of increasing worry about her mother’s chronic stomach issues, Lynn Bourgeois finally took a day off from work to bring her mother, Angela Aupperlee, to the emergency department at Leominster Hospital. They arrived around 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 28. Almost seven hours later, the women hadn’t gotten any further than the waiting room, where they sat alongside dozens of others, some so sick that staff gave them bags to vomit into, Bourgeois said. “You lose all your humanity in the waiting room,” she said. (Laughlin, 11/25)

After an abandoned effort to turn it into a public school, the former St. Joseph’s Hospital in South Providence will be put up for sale by real estate developer Joseph R. Paolino Jr., who hopes it will be turned into badly-needed housing. The listing is set to go live on Tuesday through real estate company Cushman & Wakefield, which will conduct an auction. There is no asking price, said Paolino, who is seeking proposals. (Machado, 11/25)

Days after laying off most of its staff, the troubled Pontiac General Hospital has filed for bankruptcy protection for the third time. The for-profit hospital, which is officially named Oakland Physicians Medical Center LLC, had its Medicare reimbursement stripped by the feds yesterday for a variety of noncompliance in nursing, medical staff, patient rights and other issues. Neither the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services nor Pontiac General have elaborated on the violations. (Walsh, 11/25)

���ϳԹ��� News: Indiana Hospitals Pull Merger Application After Pushback Over Monopoly Concerns

Two rival hospitals in Terre Haute, Indiana, pulled back their merger application Monday, just days before the state was due to rule on the deal amid growing backlash to such medical monopolies. The proposed merger between Union Health and Terre Haute Regional Hospital, the only acute care hospitals in Vigo County, Indiana, would have left Terre Haute’s 58,000 residents and those in the surrounding region with a single hospital operator. Although federal laws prohibit monopolies, the hospitals sought the merger under a state provision known as a “Certificate of Public Advantage” law, or COPA. (Liss, 11/26)

AdventHealth has signed a definitive agreement with affiliates of Community Health Systems to purchase a pair of Charlotte County hospitals, one that remains closed to inpatient care due to hurricane damage. The deal to acquire 254-bed ShorePoint Health Port Charlotte and 208-bed ShorePoint Health Punta Gorda was valued at $265 million. (Mayer, 11/25)

Resident physicians and fellows in the Philadelphia area may unionize, a growing trend fueled by an increase in hospital-employed physicians, industry observers said. More than 3,000 residents and fellows training at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Temple University Hospital and Jefferson Health said last week they will vote on whether to unionize. The Philadelphia physicians-in-training are seeking representation by the Committee of Interns and Residents/Service Employees International Union and would follow other labor organization efforts in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, Minnesota and California. (Kacik, 11/25)

Mount Sinai Health System has opened a $100 million building dedicated to artificial intelligence. The Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health is dedicated to the research and development of AI tools that can be used across the eight-hospital system, Mt. Sinai said Monday. The facility is housed in a 65,000-square-foot building on New York City’s Upper East Side near the system's main campus. It will centralize Mount Sinai's AI efforts in genomics, imaging, pathology, electronic health records and clinical care. (Perna, 11/25)