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Facing another round of budget cuts, Louisiana likely can't afford all of its privatized LSU hospitals and could shutter the safety net facilities except for those in Shreveport and New Orleans, the health department's chief financial officer said Tuesday. Jeff Reynolds, undersecretary for the Department of Health and Hospitals, delivered the grim news to a House budget committee as lawmakers grapple with proposals for how to close a $750 million state budget shortfall for the financial year that begins July 1. (DeSlatte, 3/29)

Expanding Medicaid to provide insurance for thousands of more people in Louisiana is just the beginning of a major health care overhaul being planned by Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration. The changes could mean moving away from the state's historic practice of designating regional hospitals across the state as "safety net" health care providers that treat the poor and uninsured. Edwards' decision to accept new federal dollars in expanding Medicaid would be key to that move, Department of Health and Hospitals Undersecretary Jeff Reynolds told lawmakers Monday (March 28), because it would create new revenue streams that DHH could direct toward a broader swath of hospitals and create new incentives based around improved health outcomes. (Litten, 3/29)

Hospitals are increasingly under attack. Earlier this week, the Washington D.C.-based MedStar Health, which runs ten hospitals, was exposed to a computer virus. (Gorenstein, 3/29)

Orlando Health is rolling out system-wide an app that has been developed by two of its physician. Dr. Hamish Munro and Dr. Kevin de la Roza, pediatric cardiac anesthesiologists at Arnold Palmer Hospital of Children, created the EASE app in 2013 to keep families abreast of their loved ones' status in the operating room. (Miller, 3/29)