BizFeed: CHOP No Longer Top Children’s Hospital in U.S.
The Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania at UPENN.
1. CHOP falls to second place in Children’s Hospital Rankings
The News: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has fallen to second place in the newest U.S. News & World Report rankings of children’s hospitals. Boston Children’s Hospital ranked first.
U.S. News & World Report offered some impressive stats on CHOP:
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA is ranked nationally in 10 pediatric specialties. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is a 480-bed children’s general facility with 31,262 admissions in the most recent year reported. It performed 7,568 annual inpatient and 18,369 outpatient surgeries. Its emergency room had 88,212 visits. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is a teaching hospital.
Why it Matters: Boston and Philadelphia have been battling it out for the top spot in the rankings for years. The two institutions were tied last year and in 2012. CHOP ranked first in 2013.
CHOP performed very well, ranking in the top three in eight of 10 categories. It ranked first in the nation in neonatology and orthopedics. It ranked second in urology and diabetes care, and ranked third in four categories.
2. Apple Transforming Music Business Yet Again
The News: At its Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday, Apple announced plans that could transform the music business. Apple Music is its new streaming service where users pay $9.99 per month to stream an unlimited number of songs each month. But in a major change for the company, users will only rent the music, not own it. Plus it will offer Beats 1, basically a radio station, and a social outreach tool so listeners can find new artists.
Why it Matters: Apple disrupted the music business in the early 2000s with the invention of the iPod and iTunes. Can they do it again?
This trend is mirrored by the music industry as a whole. Streaming revenues have been rising while downloads have declined in recent years. However, unlike with the launch of its iPod, Apple did not lead this musical revolution. Instead, it is pushing into space occupied by other firms. The most obvious encroachment is onto the turf of on-demand streaming services, including Spotify, which has 15m paying subscribers globally. Apple Music will attempt to differentiate itself from incumbents by having better curated playlists that are hand-selected by people, not algorithms.
Engadget isn’t too convinced that it’ll work:
Apple’s late to the game when it comes to streaming music, and it’s going to throw every feature it can at us until we start buying in. At this (admittedly early) stage, Apple Music feels like a mish-mosh of a disparate elements the company thinks we might want, but whatever it lacks in elegance, it makes up for in presence.
3. GE’s $12 Billion Deal
The News: General Electric just struck a $12 billion deal with a Canadian pension fund. The Wall Street Journal has details:
GE said it would sell its sponsor finance business, which includes private-equity lending business Antares Capital, and a $3 billion bank loan portfolio to Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
Why it Matters: The WSJ calls it a “major step in the industrial giant’s retreat from banking.”
The deal is a step forward in GE’s effort to sell off the bulk of its $500 billion GE Capital unit. GE is largely getting out of the banking business after years in which investors urged the company to return to its roots as market conditions and federal regulations weigh on the unit’s returns.
Bloomberg offers this quote from GE’s CEO:
“This announcement is the next step in GE’s transformation to a more focused industrial company,” said Keith Sherin, GE Capital’s chairman and chief executive officer.
