Amazon Web Services announced three new capabilities for its cloud-based contact center that will improve patient communication for hospitals, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from North Carolina and Washington.

• North Carolina: Novant Health, a hospital system that operates 15 hospitals and 800 clinics, last week suspended 375 employees without pay for not complying with its vaccine mandate. Suspended employees were given five days to get the first shot, and almost 200 did so. However, the health system fired roughly 175 workers for not following the mandate, making this one of the largest reported cases of mass terminations triggered by a vaccine requirement, Axios reports. (Chen, Axios, 9/28)

• North Carolina: Mission Health appointed Clint Kendall CEO and CNO at Angel Medical Center in Franklin, effective Aug. 4. Kendall said he's "excited to be in the community of Franklin" and that he looks "forward to caring for the people of this area in my new role at Angel Medical Center." (Jensik, Becker's Hospital Review, 9/28)

• Washington: Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday unveiled three new capabilities for the Amazon Connect platform related to patient communication. According to AWS, their new technology could allow a hospital network to easily schedule and send high-volume outbound communications by specifying the patient list, content, and the channel, such as voice, email, or text. According to a release, large hospital health care networks "can send texts and emails to ask patients to confirm upcoming appointments, and then automatically call all patients that fail to respond." (Ahmed, Insider Intelligence, 9/28; Brady, Modern Healthcare, 9/28)