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Hackers demanded a ransom from two more Southern California hospitals last week and federal authorities are investigating the case. Prime Healthcare Services Inc., a fast-growing national hospital chain, said the attackers infiltrated computer servers on Friday at two of its California hospitals, Chino Valley Medical Center in Chino and Desert Valley Hospital in Victorville. The company said the cyberattack had not affected patient safety or compromised records on patients or staff. (Terhune, 3/22)

In a perfect world, patients with advance directives would be confident that their doctors and nurses — no matter where they receive care — could know in a split second their end-of-life wishes. But this ideal is still in the distance. Patients’ documents often go missing in maze-like files or are rendered unreadable by incompatible software. And this risk continues even as health systems and physician practices adopt new electronic health records. So advocates and policymakers are pushing for a fix. (Luthra, 3/23)