From reimbursement landscape challenges to dwindling patient volumes, many factors lead hospitals to close.
Here are 10 hospitals that have closed in the past four months, beginning with the most recent:
1. Dallas-based Steward Health Care closed St. Luke's Medical Center in Phoenix on Nov. 24. Officials said the hospital closed due to dwindling patient volumes. St. Luke's Medical Center's occupancy rate remained below 40 percent over the past two years, President James Flinn wrote in a letter to the local community in October.
2. Nix Medical Center, a 208-bed hospital in San Antonio, closed in November. A few months earlier, Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holdings said it was closing the hospital because community demand for acute care at Nix Medical Center has declined over the past year.
3. Southcross Hospital in San Antonio closed Oct. 11. The hospital and its operator, San Antonio-based Arete Healthcare, entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November.
4. Haskell County Community Hospital in Stigler, Okla., closed Oct. 2, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Haskell County Community Hospital is one of several hospitals previously owned by Kansas City, Mo.-based EmpowerHMS that filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year.
5. Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health closed MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island, Ill., on Sept. 30. Quorum announced in June that it filed an application with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to close the 314-bed hospital.
6. East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry closed Sept. 27. The hospital's president and CEO cited mounting financial losses as one of the factors that forced the hospital to shut down.
7. Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling, W.Va., closed in September. Hospital officials said the "unwanted, yet unavoidable," decision was made due to an unsuccessful search for a strategic partner, lack of interest from potential buyers and a more than $37 million operating loss over the last two years.
8. Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia closed in early September. Hahnemann announced in June that it would close Sept. 6. The hospital pushed back the closure date after a bankruptcy judge approved the sale of its residency programs on Sept. 5.
9. Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, Ill., closed in August, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Los Angeles-based Pipeline Health revealed plans to close Westlake Hospital in February, a few weeks after acquiring the 230-bed hospital from Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare.
10. North Metro Medical Center in Jacksonville, Ark., closed Aug. 20, leaving local residents without an emergency room. No notice was given before the hospital shut down.
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