Sam Hazen, CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare said the hospital industry is "still a bit of a cottage industry, very fragmented, doesn't really have a lot of scale," the Nashville Business Journal reported Oct. 9.
Mr. Hazen was moderating a panel on hospital innovation Oct. 8 at the Nashville Health Care Council's Nashville Health Care Sessions, according to the report.
He said the hospital industry is "a bit bespoke."
"By that I mean the care that’s delivered from one institution to the other can be quite different for a host of reasons … and that bespoke aspect I think produces different outcomes," he said, according to the report.
Mr. Hazen also said that the healthcare industry is not producing enough value.
"It’s generating a lot of cost to government, it’s generating a lot of cost to employers and it’s not necessarily delivering the value," he said.
Mr. Hazen said there is a need for healthcare institutions to be more productive when it comes to workforce, resources and capital, but added that it's "not easy."
"There’s a significant amount of life-and-death decision making that happens inside the processes within hospitals in delivering high-quality care," he said.