For the spring 2024 issue of HCA Healthcare Magazine, Sam Hazen, CEO, sat down with Kelli Nations, Chief Nursing Executive (CNE) American Group, to discuss HCA Healthcare’s key achievements in 2023, and to look ahead at what’s in store for the organization in 2024.
Kelli Nations: As an organization, we have gone through a lot of change this last year, and you’ve also done a lot of work to really help us from a nursing standpoint to ensure that we’re delivering great care at the bedside. Tell me what about these changes has got you so excited?
Sam Hazen: We actually made a lot of changes starting at the end of 2022 when we had a few retirements, and it opened up an opportunity for us to think about our structure. We started at the corporate level going from two group offices to three because we felt it was important that the corporate office be more connected to our facilities and divisions. I think it’s really been energizing for the company because it’s created a lot of opportunities for folks to grow. People have opportunities to move to a different city, move into a different role. I think it sets us up for a bright future.
Kelli Nations: When I was DCNE in Gulf Coast, that was one of our big attractors from other systems in the area to come and work with
HCA Healthcare — because nursing does such a fantastic job of promoting from within and all of the leadership development work that we do. So tell me, what are you thinking about in 2024 for our nursing strategic plan and our nursing work overall?
Sam Hazen: We had a very comprehensive end-of-year quality review for the company, and, in the aggregate, our quality metrics are better than they were pre-pandemic. 2023 was really the first year we had without a heavy COVID-19 influence, and we were able to judge whether or not we had made progress on our patient safety agenda, our clinical outcomes agenda, our quality agenda, and so forth. As we push forward, we’re focused on how we help our workforce and really develop their capabilities so they can provide better care to our patients. We have a lot of investment going into education — our Galen College of Nursing programs are growing significantly. And then what I’m really excited about is our technology agenda that can be a game-changer for us with respect to how we deliver care. I think it’s going to require that all of us change a little bit and get used to using technology to support what we do in our facilities. We’re poised to deliver much better outcomes for our patients if we can get down the road on this journey in a way that I don’t think any other organization can.
Watch the conversation in its entirety to hear more.
