Please read and review the article "A Note on Defensive Strategies from the Jul $27$ material. This article is a summary version of a major article published by Hauser and Shugan in $1981.$ The original article is available as a reference should you be interested in the topic. With this in mind, please consider the healthcare landscape that is now going through significant vertical integration, acquisitions and the creation of small platform ecosystems. Our final discussion is centered on this topic and the application of defensive strategies in this realm and how this affects the competition and cooperative behavior between healthcare systems in local and regional markets. Topics include but are not limited to positioning changes, strategic acquisitions, talent recruitment and retention, community engagement efforts for continued patient engagement and more.