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The state Attorney General last week approved the sale of six California safety-net hospitals to Prime Healthcare after a long and contentious approval process. (Gorn, 2/23)

Take it or leave it. That's the message to a Southern California for-profit company from Attorney General Kamala Harris who late last week laid out a dozen requirements for Prime Healthcare Services' $843 million deal to buy six cash-crunched nonprofit hospitals. (Seipel, 2/23)

A special state panel created by Gov. Nathan Deal has proposed a pilot program that would use telemedicine and other techniques to bolster rural health care in Georgia. The Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee report, released Monday, supports a “hub and spoke’’ model to relieve the burden on rural hospital emergency rooms. It would use telemedicine-equipped ambulances to facilitate remote diagnoses of patients in rural areas. (Miller, 2/23)

A panel studying Georgia's rural health issues on Monday recommended a pilot program pairing four hospitals with other providers in their area, creating a "hub and spoke" model aimed at cutting down on expensive emergency room visits to struggling hospitals. Members of the Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee said in their report that four rural facilities have closed in recent months and 15 are financially fragile — including six operating on a "day-to-day basis." (2/23)