Some of the effects of HIPAA, the nations sweeping new health-care privacy rules that took effect last week, are readily apparent at hospitals and doctors offices in the Inland Northwest. Take the practice of signing in for a doctors It to

One day, just for fun, Denis Koch drove to one of his Tune Tech Inc. shops in a friends Porsche.A customer at the counter asked about the sleek machine after watching Koch pull up, and was relieved to learn Koch had borrowed it. The customer

The war with Iraq, the struggling economy, and environmental concerns have turned some Americans on to fuel-efficient automobiles again, while pushing them away from the gas-guzzling vehicles so popular in recent years. Manufacturers, are it to

A new Windermere Real Estate franchise has opened its offices just north of downtown Spokane.The franchise, Windermere Real Estate/City Group Inc., is located in about 2,000 square feet of office space on the second floor of the Rivers Edge at

Washington Trust Bank plans to begin building a 3,300-square-foot branch at Wandermere Mall this spring. The Spokane-based bank has owned a construction pad in the southwest portion of the malls parking lot, at Hastings Road and U.S. 395, and

Aries Northwest LLC, a Spokane company owned by Scott and Carolyn Schmidtman and a family trust, has bought the assets of the big Westside MotorSports dealership on the West Plains for an undisclosed sum.Scott Schmidtman, an attorney, former it

DataPro Solutions Inc., of Spokane Valley, says it has reached an agreement in principle to acquire the sales and technical-support assets of Spokane-based WindStar Group Inc., a computer systems vendor and consultant, and plans to formalize that

Coldwell Banker Schneidmiller Realty, of Coeur dAlene, plans to open an office in Post Falls this summer that will focus on that fast-growing community, as well as do business across the state line in Liberty Lake and Spokane Valley. About &

Two affiliated Spokane hotel companies have sought protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.One of those companies, JG-DR LLC, owns and operates a 70-room Comfort Inn & Suites at 2730 N. Madson, at the Liberty Lake

Avista Advantage, the Avista Corp. subsidiary that manages utility bills for businesses with multiple sites, slashed its losses by 60 percent last year and now expects it might break even by the middle of this year.The operation, which has its