Atrium Health

Charlotte-based Atrium Health is merging with Midwest-based Advocate Aurora Health, a move that will double atrium size. For more, "Morning Edition" host Marshall Terry talks to Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger business newsletter in this week's BizWorthy.

Atrium Health announced Wednesday it’s merging with Midwest-based Advocate Aurora Health. The combined systems will be headquartered in Charlotte and will operate 67 hospitals across Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin, according to a news release.

Charlotte area hospitals make a profit on patient care, according to an online calculator from the National Academy for State Health Policy.

Cabarrus County Schools and Atrium Health will open a new early college high school in August. It lets students earn free credits and prepare for health science careers.

Neither of Charlotte's two largest hospital systems have plans to require their health care workers to get a booster shot against COVID-19, physicians with Atrium Health and Novant Health said on Tuesday.

Mecklenburg commissioners voted 6-2 Tuesday night to subsidize a new medical school and adjacent development.

Months after a new health care price transparency rule went into effect, some North Carolina hospitals failed to show full compliance. Now, nearly a full year under the new rule, leaders from those hospitals say they are fully following the policy, but regulators have not publicly released information to show these hospitals are indeed in good standing.

Charlotte City Council approved a plan to let the city reimburse part of $75 million to a management company that will build what Atrium Health is calling an "innovation district" to go along with its new medical school. But Mecklenburg County is also being asked to chip in on that $75 million, and commissioners can't vote on their part until December.

Atrium Health is seeking $75 million in public money to pay for infrastructure for the 26-acre medical school and what's being billed as an "innovation district."

Not all hospitals responded to questions, but those who did are saying vaccine exemptions for their workers are relatively rare.