Saint Francis Healthcare has named Scott Smith as CEO of Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis and market CEO for Tenet Healthcare’s Memphis market, which includes Saint Francis Hospital-Bartlett. 

Baptist Medical Group plans to close its minor medical centers in East Memphis, Bartlett and Olive Branch. The Cordova location will remain open. 

Fewer than half of eligible Tennesseans are participating in WIC, a federal nutrition program that serves low-income children and pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women.

The Operating Room Scholars program’s nursing students will receive some tuition support from Baptist Memorial Health Care and agree to work for Baptist for two years following graduation.

Customers may come in for a basic haircut and leave with a free blood pressure check. Methodist Hospital North’s partnership with area barbers brings care to men most at risk of hypertension. 

The new facility, which provides primary care for low-income senior residents at College Park in South Memphis, is the first on-site clinic at a Memphis Housing Authority community. 

The manufacturer expects it will be on grocery and convenience store shelves in early 2024. Price, a critical factor, has not been announced. 

“To see a guy in the peak of his career be taken out like that is so tragic,” said Dr. Dan Fletcher, one of nine orthopedic hand surgeons in the city and a longtime colleague to Dr. Ben Mauck. 

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With an assist from Buddy the Bernedoodle, visitors to the Baptist Centers for Good Grief find a warm and comforting friend to help them cope with loss.

All Kids Academy is an internship program that trains U of M child development and family studies majors to educate Le Bonheur patients 5 years old and younger who are experiencing prolonged hospitalization. 

The summer program, which launched in 2022, pays teens $15 an hour as they learn.

Ted and Merica Lyons’ ShotRx mobile clinics bring vaccinations directly to people in Shelby and Tipton County neighborhoods, as part of an effort to improve childhood immunization in the area, and the company is about to announce a partnership to help the unhoused. 

About half of all the mothers and babies born in Tennessee are covered by TennCare, so the change could make a substantial difference. 

At Regional One Health, referrals from other hospitals for cases where the mother’s life is in danger are up 10%-20% because doctors in outlying areas are afraid of the risk.

“Treatments are being skipped and delayed, doses are being reduced, treatment plans are being changed, and sequences of usual treatment are being altered,” said Dr. Sylvia Richey, chief medical officer at West Cancer Center & Research Institute. 

Hampton Hopkins most recently served as president of Carolinas College of Health Sciences in Charlotte, where he planned a relocation for the college and a $4.5 million renovation.

The 18,000-square-foot center’s redesign — its first since its inception 20 years ago — focuses on patient comfort, convenience and added privacy. 

Memphis Obstetrics and Gynecological Association assists patients from puberty to menopause and beyond, offering prenatal, maternity and diagnostic services.

Pancreatic cancer affects Black Americans at a rate higher than that of any other population. 

A year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, ending abortion access in the Mid-South, a Choices clinic in Illinois is performing 350 procedures per month. By October, leaders expect the number will be 600.

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Of the nation’s large metropolitan areas, Memphis has the second highest rate of newly diagnosed HIV cases. Only the Miami metropolitan area has a higher rate. 

“One year ago, Tennessee faced an instant health emergency for pregnant people when we became a forced birth state,” said Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi.

LifeDoc Health plans to double its workforce to accommodate growing patient need. 

ALSAC, the fundraising organization of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, says it has laid off 29 of its 1,700 employees.