Blake Farmer
Senior Healthcare ReporterBlake Farmer is Nashville Public Radio's senior health care reporter. In a partnership with Kaiser Health News and NPR, Blake covers health in Tennessee and the health care industry in the Nashville area for local and national audiences.
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Many Tennessee hospitals are in trouble as they try to stabilize after the trauma of COVID-19. The Tennessee Hospital Association has published a new survey that finds: Now that pandemic relief money has dried up, nearly half are at risk of closure. -
More and more hospitals are contracting with private companies to run their emergency departments. To save money, many are increasingly relying on nurses and physician assistants instead of doctors.
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Increasingly, private equity firms shape staffing decisions at hospital emergency rooms, research shows. One apparent effect: Hiring fewer doctors and more health care practitioners who earn far less. -
Tennessee’s new commissioner of health made his first appearance before a legislative committee Wednesday, though the Republican chairman warned members not to question Dr. Ralph Alvarado about HIV funding. Even -
LG Chem of South Korea announced plans on Monday for a $3.2 billion plant in Clarksville, making a key part for electric vehicle batteries. -
Clinics that care for long COVID patients are wrestling with how to handle a condition that is still poorly understood and has no widely accepted treatments.
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Atheists will still be barred under state law, though the U.S. Supreme Court superseded that position. -
More than 700 Tennessee health care workers have signed an open letter to state lawmakers, asking them to revisit the state’s all-out abortion ban. -
When rural hospitals go out of business, they're frequently gone for good. But now, some comebacks are a welcome sign for communities that have been without easy access to health care.
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It will still be a month or more before abortions are available within a three-hour drive of Nashville.
