Less than 10 regular business hours. That’s how long health care executives gave the public to digest their plans to merge Raleigh and Charlotte’s largest hospital systems.
The Wake County Board of Commissioners had a meeting set for Monday, May 4, at 5 p.m., where it was expected to sign off on legal changes to allow the once publicly owned nonprofit, WakeMed, to merge with Charlotte-based Atrium Health.
After quietly examining the proposal for two years, WakeMed’s board had unanimously approved the deal last month. The county’s required legal adjustments were nestled in a consent agenda, a step of local governance considered so mundane that batches of routine items get approved in one swoop…