Inspired by her grandmother Eva Moses, HCA Houston Healthcare Southeast CEO Yasmene McDaniel, MBA, MHA, enrolled in Baylor University’s premedical program intending to become a physician. During her junior year, she discovered a new passion, pivoting from clinical training and obtaining postgraduate degrees in business and healthcare administration at Texas Woman’s University.

Prior to joining the HCA Houston Healthcare Southeast team, Yasmene worked for HCA Healthcare affiliate Corpus Christi Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Texas. She served in executive roles with Sparks Health System in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Jackson Health System in Miami, Florida.

In June 2021, the Texas native joined the HCA Houston Healthcare Southeast network, which comprises an acute care hospital, a freestanding rehabilitation hospital, freestanding emergency rooms and medical access points throughout southeastern Harris County.

Yasmene’s incredible impact extends beyond her role with HCA Healthcare. In addition to receiving a Houston Business Journal Diversity in Business Award, she was named chair of the 2024 Houston March For Babies: A Mother of a Movement™.

Last summer, Yasmene traveled to Ghana to help open a 40-bed hospital through Ghana’s One Heart Medical Center.

Q: What inspired you, growing up?

A: I’m from a very small town in Texas, Dime Box. The population is less than 500. My senior class had 12 people. My grandmother was a nurse, and since it was a small town, she made house calls, doing glucose checks and blood pressure checks and making sure everyone was OK.

She was the intermediary for those who didn’t have access to the healthcare they needed. I followed her as she went to neighbors’ and community members’ homes to check on them.

Q: What was appealing about healthcare administration?

A: We get that amazing opportunity to go into a community and say, “What this community needs is a hospital,” or “This community really needs a surgery center.” If your community needs a specialized service, then we have the opportunity to bring that to fruition. We connect all the dots between healthcare delivery, the physicians and community needs.

Q: What is your personal mission?

A: My purpose is aligned to helping others in need and bringing forth that connection. I’ve been blessed to know some amazing people and had the opportunity to work and be associated with some awesome, kind, talented, skilled people. I can connect or be the liaison. That’s the same thing I do in my job every day. I talk to our nursing teams, and they express the concerns that they’re having, and I try to find the resources to get them what they need. I talk to the physicians and the surgeons we partner with, and, again, I try to be that connector to help them to do their best work.

Q: What are you most excited about at your facility?

A: We’re providing awesome services that this hospital has never done before. In the three years that I’ve been here, we’ve opened two specialty units in our hospitals. We’ve opened another rehab hospital on a separate campus. We have other projects on the horizon that are advancing technology, advancing the care and the services that we’re able to bring to this community. At my hospital right now, we are transforming the health of the population in southeast Harris County. The thought that I would even be part of that is mind-blowing.

Q: How about in your current role at HCA Houston Healthcare Southeast?

A: We’ve opened a freestanding emergency room and a freestanding rehabilitation hospital where we have expanded our inpatient rehab beds, as well as opened new skilled nursing beds. When your loved one needs that type of support, you want to make sure that they’re getting that intense rehabilitation and that they’re getting access to therapies in order to recover all of their skills. I’ve been very blessed within HCA to see my purpose realized over and over again.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you face?

A: COVID-19 was a huge challenge. Now we have this new, excited workforce. We went through the process of rehiring, rebuilding. We have all that great energy with all of these excited team members, from nursing to tech, to technologists, to all the different disciplines. I’m figuring out, how to take all of this wonderful excitement and engagement and nurture it appropriately so that they don’t lose their love and passion on the days that the job is really hard. How do you harness it and funnel it to where it ignites movement? That’s where I spend a lot of time having management team meetings and touch points with our new workforce.

Q: How has HCA Healthcare helped you fulfill your mission?

A: There have been a lot of opportunities, starting with my first introduction to HCA Healthcare as a practice manager. A physician practice in Houston was closing its doors, and that would have caused a lack of physicians in that community. HCA Healthcare offered the physicians employment, providing care for those patients.

When I worked in Corpus Christi, the Rockport community was without access to healthcare. The nearest emergency room was 40 miles away. Time matters when you’re having a stroke or a heart attack. I was part of the team that opened a freestanding ER in Rockport to provide care for that community. And now I’m expanding and elevating services in the Pasadena, Texas community.

Q: It sounds like you really enjoy your work.

A: I do. Even on the day that it’s hard and I don’t want to get out of bed, because everybody has those days, I don’t mind doing it because I know once I get in the building, I’m just going to be so grateful that I get to be part of it.

Q: That speaks to a “service mindset,” doesn’t it?

A: Definitely. Every day, every meeting, we start with our mission statement – “Above all else, we’re committed to the care and improvement of human life.” It’s one of those things that we sometimes rattle off without thinking about how impactful those words are. So when we do have those hard meetings or those challenging situations, I will challenge the team to just pause, and really think about those words. We all get the opportunity to truly help someone else every day.

Q: It also sounds like it’s your life’s work. Is it?

A: I’m one of those people who always says “Yes.” If people ask me to do something, I’ll say, “Sure, why not?” If nothing else, I’ll learn from it. I’ve had the opportunity to not just participate on all of the things that HCA Healthcare does, but also through personal mission work.

Last summer, in July, I had the opportunity to go to Ghana and open a new 40-bed hospital unit. That was a personal mission and fulfillment. The organization is called One Heart Medical Center, located in northern Ghana. I still work with them, having those think-tank conversations as to how they’re creating access and giving care to people in that area and around the region. Obviously, there was tons of work over the course of the build. Then there’s that final push at the end to get it all completed. I actually traveled for that two-week period.

It’s one of those things where we take for granted every single day that we’re going to wake up in the morning and turn on the electricity, turn on the lights. We don’t think about it anymore, right? If you want some water, you just go to the refrigerator and get it. I think that we just become entitled to it because we have such access. So when you are put in scenarios or situations where people don’t have that luxury, it just really makes you appreciate and be more grateful for all of the things that we do have.