Ascension Health has created a new holding company to organize and anchor its Catholic health care services and businesses in a health care economy undergoing seismic shifts.

After undergoing gastric bypass surgery in August 2008 at Saint Joseph East in Lexington, Ky., Nelda Marshall was urged to attend monthly meetings with a hospital dietician to help her continue to lose weight and eat healthfully. She kept only one appointment.

It was after a nurses' banquet several years ago that Marcia Donlon struck upon the concept: Nurses have great stories, and they love to share them with each other.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued new rules to limit the amount of mercury and toxic air pollution that power plants emit, and CHA and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have said they support the new standards and believe they will help to protect people's health.

For a decade, certified music-thanatologist Laura Moya has played the harp for terminally ill patients at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Ore.

At its December meeting, the CHA Board of Trustees decided to defer the recruitment and selection process for new board members until June 2013.

Bonnie Phipps, president and chief executive of Ascension Health's Saint Agnes HealthCare in Baltimore, told an international audience of ministry health leaders about patient experiences with the health care safety net in the U.S.

Sr. Helene Lentz, CSJ, died of cancer Dec. 22 at age 64. She had played a leadership role in the merger that formed Via Christi Health of Wichita, Kan., and she had headed the congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita.

A national not-for-profit says it can help communities to house chronically homeless individuals by making the communities aware of approaches, programs, funding sources and resources that they may not have known about or tried before.