The Massachusetts-based Steward Health Care System will close down Quincy Medical Center by the end of the year, displacing nearly 700 workers, according to the Boston Globe. The closure will be the biggest hospital closing in Massachusetts in at least 10 years. Steward bought the teaching hospital out of bankruptcy in 2011 and invested $100 million in upgrades, but the patient base remained too small to make up the losses, which will come to $20 million this year. Steward executives blamed the oversaturation of hospitals in the area; there are more than 12 within 10 miles of Quincy. A widespread preference among patients for large teaching hospitals may have exacerbated the problem, according to the article. "This is not a pleasant process," David Cutler, a healthcare economist at Harvard University, told the Globe. "It is an economic reality about healthcare. There's no fighting economic realities." Article