21.   Many hospitals are trying to operate more efficiently, discharging patients more quickly when possible.

22.   Many hospitals are aggressively trying to cut costs, prodded by a growing number of health insurance plans that pay a flat fee for a treatment.

23.   Meanwhile, hospitals have tried to come up with their own solutions.

24.   Meanwhile, local hospitals are simultaneously trying a variety of approaches to see what works.

25.   Now, even though hospitals are trying to hire again, the nurses are no longer available.

26.   Powerful hospitals have tried to engineer their survival behind smokescreens of competition rhetoric, often at the expense of smaller institutions.

27.   Profit-making hospitals are trying to qualify for federal disaster assistance, now available only to nonprofit groups.

28.   Pressured by rising costs, hospitals are aggressively trying to squeeze revenue from mountains of overdue bills for patient care.

29.   She said the hospital will try to accommodate some patients in its own dialysis clinic, but she could not say how many.

30.   Since then, the hospital has tried to convince Weinstein that Gigante was taking up a bed in the coronary-care unit that was needed by other patients.