Spokane and the Inland Northwest clearly are at the forefront of a national movement toward enhanced health-care information technology and stand to benefit as that movement picks up momentum, a federal official said during a recent visit here."In many ways, your community already serves as a beaco...

It's Clarissa Sorensen's first birthday and she plans to celebrate the best way 1-year-olds know how: by getting as much birthday cake as possible on her face. Squirming in her father's lap, she flashes a huge smile that says, "I'm the center of attention today," and reaches up a tiny hand to touch...

Luring a multitalented IT staff to a rural critical access hospital is beyond difficult. It's downright impossible, says Harold Geller, administrator of Othello (Wash.) Community Hospital."We could afford maybe one person, but they'd be on call 24/7, and nobody wants to work like that these days. I...

INHS Chief Executive Officer Tom Fritz has received the "Outstanding Health Care Executive - Beyond Puget Sound" award from the Seattle Business Magazine. The magazine’s annual Leaders in Health Care event, held at the Columbia Tower Club in Seattle, WA, honored the dedication, leadership and innov...

Northwest MedStar, the Spokane-based air ambulance service operated by nonprofit Inland Northwest Health Services, achieved a continuing, gradual climb in patient volume and revenues last year, banking clear of the dark clouds of the recession.It foresees some potentially choppy air ahead, though, ...

Those who grew up in the pre-Internet world can remember having little access to their credit reports. Today, consumers easily can check and understand their credit scores online.Similarly, access to health records has been shrouded in mystery. But Microsoft, Google and Inland Northwest Health Serv...

Inland Northwest Health Services, the big Spokane-based nonprofit, is riding a growth wave that has been weakened only modestly by the countercurrents of recession and the swirling distractions of its two financially ailing hospital-system owners.The 1,042-employee organization posted record revenu...

Inland Northwest Health Services, the nonprofit health-services provider owned jointly by Spokane's two main hospital systems, says it will buy 60,000 square feet of floor space it occupies in the Wells Fargo Center for $10.1 million.The purchase will include the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and 1...

Inland Northwest Health Services, of Spokane, has been awarded a $583,000 grant by the Washington state Health Authority to launch a pilot project that will involve setting up an Internet-based health-record bank for patients here early next year.INHS says it will seek to recruit about 5,000 users ...

Want to see the future of health care in the United States? A good place to start might be Spokane’s Inland Northwest Health Services.“We’re a unique venture owned by competing hospitals where we actually take certain assets that were part each individual hospital and create one non-competitive ass...

Employers who enable workers to have some say in shaping their work schedules are more likely to retain them, Spokane-area advocates of the “flexible workplace” concept say.Flexible work schedules enable employees to maintain a healthy balance between their work and family lives, help employers att...

Last month, representatives from Greater Spokane Incorporated and several Spo­kane-area companies trav­eled to Southern California looking to strike it rich. But unlike the gold rush of the 1800s, they were mining for workers, not precious metals. In anticipation of the coming wave of baby boomer r...

When I first met Kalen Privatsky, President of the Washington State Medical Group Management Association, he told me that health care facilities in eastern Washington had a better infrastructure in place for information sharing with hospitals than health care facilities in western Washington. Livin...

Ever watched the classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? Greater Spokane Incorporated went to the marble city last week with all the enthusiasm of a Jimmy Stewart character! While in Washington D.C., we had the opportunity to meet with many of our Senators and Representatives in Washington and Idaho...

Your head hurts. Your stomach churns. Your body aches with exhaustion. You lie awake at night, too anxious to fall asleep. During the day, you drag yourself along, too worn out to accomplish much.As the weight of the world takes its toll on your mind and body, you experience moments of sadness, ins...

Spokane-based Inland Northwest Health Services is participating in a new project for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that will make the Inland Northwest one of the first sites in the U.S. to use a large-scale health surveillance network as an early-warning system for the spread of di...

Can your job kill you? Recent studies have shown there’s a possible connection between on-the-job stress and heart disease. People who can’t cope with chronic pressure also tend to eat unhealthy food, smoke, drink and skip exercise. Workplace stress contributes to absenteeism, diminished productivi...