Working together, HCA Healthcare can achieve new heights in patient care and satisfaction

by Milton Johnson, Chairman and CEO

At HCA Healthcare, quality patient care and improving the patient experience is at the core of everything we do. Because of our size, scope and expertise, we are uniquely positioned to lead the healthcare community in this regard, and we are doing just that.

Even so, there is always room for improvement. We owe it to our patients and their families to provide an exemplary experience in every care setting. And, as I’ve visited caregivers across our organization, I’ve seen firsthand that there is a very deep desire to give our patients the best possible care we can and with the best possible personal experience. That is why I’ve set an ambitious patient experience goal for HCA Healthcare: By the end of 2018, every one of our facilities will be represented in the top 25 percent of HCA Healthcare HPS scores in the country.

Many of our hospitals are already there, and chief patient experience officer Lyn Ketelsen and her team have begun grouping facilities with similar needs and knowledge together to share advice and expertise that will help the rest achieve this goal. The key to success is making sure that we all are focused on creating a supportive, responsive and high-quality atmosphere for our patients and their families.

To succeed, we all have to dedicate ourselves to achieving this goal. When a patient and his or her family consider a hospital stay, they think of the person who provided that “wow” moment. Often, that person is a doctor or nurse. But it also could be:

• the friendly intake professional who answered questions about confusing insurance information

• the dietary worker who brought in a satisfying meal every evening

• the environmental services tech who made the patient’s room sparkle and did so with a smile

• the pharmacist who came by as the patient was leaving just to make sure all medication instructions made sense

• the discharge coordinator who called a couple days later to make sure follow-up doctor appointments were all set

I see the dedication and focus of these and many other staff members when I visit our hospitals, urgent care clinics and surgery centers. I talk to patients, and they tell me about the quality of care they are receiving. We know our patient experience goal can be achieved. We’re not reinventing the wheel here; we’re working to make the excellent care we provide even better.

One of the hallmarks of HCA Healthcare is our shared desire to excel at what we do. We set goals, and we execute them better than anyone. So, we’ll keep doing what we do so well, each and every day. And along the way, we’ll share advice and learn from one another, so we can continue to improve the input we’re getting from our patients, and to make sure that tomorrow’s care is even better than today’s.

We have the shared desire to achieve a common goal: industry-best patient experiences, and the patient-satisfaction scores that showcase our care. Now we will set about leveraging the experience and knowledge of the thousands of talented people who work in our facilities every day. I look forward to watching our innovation and initiatives unfold in the coming months. I have every confidence the goal I have set out will be met and that together we will set a standard of excellence of which we can all be proud.