Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare has 6,200 IT professionals in its information technology group spread across the country at a time when other health systems are cutting IT teams or outsourcing the department.
Marty Paslick, senior vice president and CIO of HCA Healthcare, said on the "This Week In Health IT" podcast that he's spent the last 30-some years building the technology group, and now it's part of "every conversation around key strategies at HCA Healthcare."
Digital transformation has elevated the IT department to touch every aspect of the health system, and now, with new artificial intelligence and automation capabilities to augment the workforce and optimize processes, technology is more essential than ever. One of the big differentiators for HCA Healthcare is the system's central mission, which is ingrained in every team member. The 183-hospital health system was founded by physicians with a desire to provide better patient care. Mr. Paslick said even the IT team members know the system's mission and have a commitment to improving human life.
"When you have that kind of connection from a culture perspective, it's priceless," he said on the podcast. "I would say that a majority of our technologists would rather be referred to as a healthcare professional first and a technologist second."
HCA's IT team is 65% located in Nashville, and the other 35% work in the other markets HCA serves. HCA is in 20 states and has more than 2,300 care sites, plus locations in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Paslick also called out the health system's commitment to responding quickly to feedback. In an employee engagement survey, Mr. Paslick said he received almost 9,000 comments from his 6,200-person team and put together an action plan addressing the constructive criticism.
"As an individual contributor, each of my colleagues has an opportunity to offer ideas and provide direct feedback," he said. "There's a freedom of communication where everybody's pulling in the same direction and it doesn't matter where you are in the org chart."