For the past 14 years, Jonathan Johnson, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), has dressed up as Santa every year to visit the NICU's patients, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Minnesota, New Jersey, and North Carolina.
- Minnesota: For the past 14 years, Jonathan Johnson, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), has dressed up as Santa every year to visit the NICU's patients. Johnson said, "They wanted me [to do it] because there's wires and things that some other Santas weren't comfortable with." Johnson added that he's "glad" the NICU patients can experience "what all the other kids are getting to experience" (Huppert, KARE 11, 12/16).
- New Jersey: RWJBarnabas Health and St. Peter's Healthcare System on Monday announced that they have signed a letter of intent to merge. This is the second merger RWJBarnabas has announced in the past two months, according to Modern Healthcare. The health system in October signed a letter of intent to acquire Trinitas Regional Medical Center (Kacik, Modern Healthcare, 12/16).
- North Carolina: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded Duke Clinical Research Institute a $102 million federal contract that will be spread over seven years to help boost its revenue stream. The contract comes on top of a $90 million award given to Duke by NIH in October (Gulledge, Triangle Business Journal, 12/16).