Nashville-based HealthTrust, HCA's group purchasing organization, recently landed a contract with Dallas-based Christus Health, a large Catholic health system with more than 60 hospitals and 350 clinics and outpatient centers. The GPO will begin servicing Christus Nov. 1.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Bayer have agreed on a five-year strategic research alliance to evaluate new drug candidates for the treatment of kidney diseases, with the goal of accelerating the translation of innovative approaches from the laboratory to pre-clinical development.