HCA Healthcare will restructure its company and re-appoint several senior executives, the for-profit company announced Tuesday as the latest healthcare system to reorganize operations. mine.
Nashville, Tennessee-based hospital chain 182 will add a third area operations team that will oversee the five divisions. The changes, which take effect next year, will promote more focused decision-making and support for operations, HCA executives said in a press release. A spokesperson declined to answer questions about staffing changes, cost savings or how the new structure differs from the current one.
Earlier this week, San Diego-based nonprofit integrated health system Sharp HealthCare revealed it would transition to a more focused, regional model. And in another twist, the nonprofit health system Renton, based in Washington, with 52 hospitals, cited financial pressure as a justification for downsizing its executive team.
“This is essentially and primarily a response to the financial crisis that is hitting the industry,” said Jamie Orlikoff, president of Orlikoff & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in healthcare corporate governance. health care. “Some systems are using this as an opportunity, in addition to reducing overhead and eliminating redundancy, to try to break down silos and move towards a more regional governance model,” he said.
“We will continue to see more regionalization and centralization of management as health systems try to deliver services,” said Pam Knecht, president of management consulting firm Accord Limited. , people and materials more efficiently and try to reduce costs.
Rick Kes, healthcare partner at professional services firm RSM, said the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial challenges facing the hospital industry are contributing to the departure of the director. executive director. Executives are also beginning to oversee larger areas, which Kes attributed to health systems’ shift to shared technology systems, standardizing operations and enabling broad geographic surveys than.
“If you have 20 hospitals and you have 20 different reports coming to you, all different in how they’re organized and how data is incorporated into them, it’s going to be really hard to look at all 20. that report,” Kes said. “If you get the same report with the same data and it is structured the same way and organized the same way, and if you review one report, you can quickly review the next report. much more.”
The current president of HCA’s North Texas division, Erol Akdamar, will become president of the American consortium, which includes hospitals in Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Texas and Virginia. Tim McManus, president of the Capital Division that includes Indiana, New Hampshire and Virginia, will lead the national team, which includes states and campuses in Alaska, California, Idaho, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Utah. Richard Hammett, now president of the North Florida division, will lead the Atlantic team, which includes hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, and South Carolina, which executives will report to the HCA CEO. Sam Hazen.
“HCA is trying to figure out how to have better oversight at the grassroots level, especially in light of the labor challenges facing the industry this year as it manages through the use of temporary workers. time and outsourced service providers,” said Brian Tanquilut, a healthcare equity holding research analyst at Jefferies. In contrast to other health system restructuring activities, HCA is adding an extra layer of regional management instead of simplifying its organizational chart, he said.
The system’s CEO, Chris Howard, said Sharp HealthCare will be able to improve recruitment and retention efforts in a more centralized model and bridge communication issues between executives. . “We cannot move forward in a competitive healthcare environment with overlap, duplication, waste of energy and resources,” he said. “This is our attempt to take our previous structure and simply adapt it so that we can break down the remaining vaults, especially between hospital units.”
For example, Sharp and its seven hospitals operated under a partially decentralized structure with individual hospital executives, Howard said. But in light of today’s regulatory, operational and financial challenges, it needs to adopt a more unified approach, he said.
Sharp Grossmont Hospital CEO Scott Evans will oversee that site and two other facilities in the San Diego area, Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center and Coronado harp Hospital. Trisha Khaleghi, CEO of three specialty hospitals, will oversee the fourth.
Chief Executive Officer Brett McClain said the health system is maintaining its number of executive heads beyond one retirement and one departure. “We have been able to see the incredible value of rapidly changing operations to maximize our resources across San Diego over the past three years,” he said. “The impetus for these changes is to become more agile and collaborate faster with physician partners.”
Retirement can provide the opportunity to reset. HCA’s executive restructuring coincides with the retirement of Chuck Hall, president of the national corporation, and Sylvia Young, president of the continental division, who will leave the company at the end of the year.
At Providence, Lisa Vance, president of strategy and operations for northern regions, is also retiring at the end of the year, providing an opportunity for the health system to strengthen the leadership that operates under the CEO. executive Erik Wexler.
Hospital systems are more likely to target administrative or non-technical operations to improve efficiency, said Mark Pascaris, an analyst at Fitch Rating. To date, these have not resulted in large-scale layoffs. Many companies, he said, saved by laying off middle managers before the pandemic hit.
