The Spokane areas four major hospitals together spent about $12.3 million on charity care last year and wrote off about another $13.8 million in bad debt. Though that combined $26.1 million rose just 4 percent last year, some first-quarter a rate

Hoping to attract more people at the younger end of the 55-and-over spectrum, Touchmark Living Centers Inc., of Beaverton, Ore., has proposed a $20 million offsite expansion of independent-living housing for its big Waterford on South Hill company

The $17 million expansion project at Valley Hospital & Medical Center wont be fully completed until later this year, but the hospital already has launched a handful of new or upgraded services in its expanded and remodeled space.In one key to

The American Journal of Physiology, a Bethesda, Md.-based leading scientific journal, plans to publish a study conducted by a group of Heart Institute of Spokane researchers, who found that diets high in protein harm the kidneys, especially in that

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