HCA Healthcare announces HCA Healthcare Foundation’s $1.35 million grant to Educate Texas

Today, we announced that the HCA Healthcare Foundation, through its Healthier Tomorrow Fund, will donate $1.35 million over the next three years to Educate Texas, an initiative of Communities Foundation of Texas. The grant is aimed at increasing student access to programs that enable healthcare careers, including high schools in Texas that offer Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) healthcare career tracks.

“At HCA Healthcare, we believe partnerships are essential to advancing our mission to care for and improve human life,” said Joanne Pulles, president of the HCA Healthcare Foundation. “We are proud to partner with Educate Texas and support this initiative to help provide an important pathway for creating new opportunities for students and increasing diversity in tomorrow’s healthcare leaders.”

The P-TECH school model, led by the Texas Education Agency with technical assistance provided by Educate Texas, creates relationships with high schools, institutions of higher learning and industry partners to provide a meaningful pathway for students in grades 9-12 to earn both a high school diploma and a no-cost, two-year post-secondary degree or industry-based credentials by the time they graduate high school. P-TECH is an open-enrollment high school program that creates workforce pathways aligned with high-demand, high-wage fields throughout the state, including healthcare careers.

The grant to Educate Texas is funded through the Healthier Tomorrow Fund, an $80 million community impact fund designed to support innovative initiatives focused on addressing high priority community needs and health equity. With 45 hospitals in Texas, HCA Healthcare serves communities across the state, including Austin, El Paso, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley.

“We are proud to partner with the HCA Healthcare Foundation in our mission to increase academic achievement and advance educational equity for all students in Texas,” said John Fitzpatrick, executive director of Educate Texas. “This partnership will support our efforts to expand our work with the P-TECH program so that more students have the opportunity to secure living wages and pursue lasting careers in healthcare.”

Since its inception in 2021, the Healthier Tomorrow Fund has committed $4.5 million in grants to 13 organizations. Funding the Healthier Tomorrow Fund at the HCA Healthcare Foundation is one example of the many ways HCA Healthcare is making a positive impact in the communities it serves. In 2020, HCA Healthcare provided charity care, uninsured discounts and other uncompensated care at a cost of more than $3.4 billion and incurred $4.1 billion in federal, state and local taxes. Additionally, HCA Healthcare continues to invest in the ongoing education and development of its colleagues and, as an enterprise, contributed $45 million to community organizations in 2020.

Additionally, HCA Healthcare has made significant efforts to help address the national shortage of nurses and other caregivers, including:  

• In 2020, HCA Healthcare acquired the majority ownership of Galen College of Nursing, one of the largest educators of nurses in the United States and have announced six new campuses since it joined the Company.
• HCA Healthcare has invested approximately $77.5 million to support more than 26,000 colleagues through its Student Loan Assistance and Tuition Assistance programs.
• HCA Healthcare’s 11 Centers for Clinical Advancement across the country offer advanced training that enables nurses and nursing students to hone their craft using high-fidelity, lifelike simulation equipment to replicate real-life situations.