Three's company.

• Position: TRIAD REGION - WakeMed Health and Hospitals layoffs - Brief article

Red ink and layoffs have become familiar terrain for the state's hospitals, including Winston-Salem-based Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, which had a $78.4 million operating loss the past year. "We needed to do something to increase our scale," CEO John McConnell says. "No one was ready to consider anything like a merger or becoming part of a larger system." Instead, it announced a shared-services partnership with Greenville-based Vidant Health and Raleigh-based WakeMed Health & Hospitals in September. WakeMed lost $14.4 million this year; Vidant hasn't reported this year's results, after a $94.3 million profit last year. Executives started talking earlier this year and agreed on a plan to improve efficiency by sharing purchasing power and data storage. A separate company overseeing the partnership is in the works. The health systems serve...