N.C. Health News, Charlotte Ledger team up on health care coverage

North Carolina Health News and The Charlotte Ledger have partnered to hire a reporter to cover health care and the companies and organizations that deliver it in the Charlotte region.

An excerpt from the announcement reads:

The two N.C.-based news organizations said that by teaming up, they will shine a light on a large and changing sector of Charlotte’s economy – and one that employs more than 100,000 workers and delivers medical care to thousands of patients a day. Readers of both publications had pointed out an emerging need for stepped-up independent coverage of decisions regularly made in Charlotte that affect health care for hundreds of thousands of patients, at a time when many legacy media organizations have scaled back.

The partnership will allow readers of both publications to have access to enhanced Charlotte-area health care coverage – as well as any other media outlet that would like to republish the articles it produces. N.C. Health News and The Charlotte Ledger will initially fund the effort and will seek to raise money from grants and individual contributions to extend it beyond an initial term.

The publications also announced that they have brought on Michelle Crouch, an award-winning writer and former newspaper reporter with more than 20 years of experience in journalism, to be the lead reporter on the effort on a part-time basis. She has written frequently on health topics, including articles that have appeared in national publications such as AARP, WebMD and Reader’s Digest.