Following a shareholder vote Tuesday, private-equity giant Blackstone has wrapped up its $3 billion acquisition of locally based health care transaction intermediary Emdeon. Former majority owner Hellman & Friedman is keeping a minority stake in the company.

The good news won't stop for HealthStream investors. Shares of the health care education and research company are up more than 3 percent this afternoon, rising into positive territory for the week and setting a new all-time high of $15.68. Year to date, the stock is up about 94 percent. It climbed 103 percent in 2010.

As it speeds toward the completion of its sale to private-equity titan Blackstone, Emdeon has in the past week brought to a conclusion three similar shareholder lawsuits, two of them in Middle Tennessee, another in chancery court in Delaware.

A story on WPLN says the group looking at the possibility of a federal- or state-run health insurance exchange has come to find, all things being equal, folks would rather keep it close to home.

The group weighing the pros and cons says a state exchange has support from insurers and independent businesses, as well as the state hospital, nurses and medical associations. In fact, the state Insurance Exchange Planning Initiative says it hasn’t heard from any group involved that doesn’t prefer a Tennessee exchange over one from Washington.

Darin Gordon oversees several aspects of state health care.

“Insurance regulation has historically been a state responsibility, and the belief that Washington could step into that space and regulate our insurance market I think is a bit concerning to a lot of the different stakeholders involved.”

Fred Lowrance at locally based Avondale Partners says Gaylord Entertainment "remains on track to achieve its lofty second half goals" even though there's some skepticism about the performance of the Washington, D.C., area, where the company runs its Gaylord National resort. But Lowrance says the property is likely to do better than the region as a whole, which will help drive momentum for the company (Ticker: GET) heading toward 2012.

We sense that some investors may have forgotten that prior year Opryland flood-related bookings adjustments wound up sending several groups to National (highest priced rooms in the GET system) at much lower Opryland rates — depressing 3Q’10 National rates. Any lingering softness is likely offset by robust Opryland performance as well as improving results at the Palms and Texan resorts.

Lowrance's Avondale colleague Richard Close is impressed with HealthStream's Q3 numbers — the momentum is "solid considering significant structural changes expected to occur in healthcare" — and says investors should consider taking advantage of today's pullback in the stock (Ticker: HSTM), which is due primarily to revenue coming in "only" in line with expectations. Close has reiterated his 'market outperform' rating and $17.50 price target.