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New Jersey hospital taps new CFO

Shamiq Syed has been named CFO of Secaucus, N.J.-based Hudson Regional Hospital, according to a July 17 LinkedIn post.

The hospital is part of Secaucus-based Hudson Regional Health, a four-hospital system that was formed in late May as the last step in Bayonne, N.J.-based CarePoint Health System’s bankruptcy exit.

Prior to his new role, Mr. Syed served as CFO of CarePoint Health System, according to his LinkedIn page.
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California hospital board clears path for bankruptcy filing

The leadership of Blythe, Calif.-based Palo Verde Hospital was granted the authority to file a Chapter 9 bankruptcy petition, should it become necessary, The Riverside Record reported July 17.

The Palo Verde Healthcare District board of directors granted the authority to the hospital’s CEO and interim CFO less than a month after declaring fiscal emergency, according to the report.

Interim CFO Michael Rose said the need for the fiscal emergency declaration was the result of a “series of compounding financial crises,” according to the report. Those include pandemic-related costs, protracted litigation in 2024, major operating system replacements, a cyber incident that paused billing for 45 days and the sudden resignation of key finance leadership. Provident Bank in May also took money from the district’s accounts to pay back a $2.8 million line of credit.

Mr. Rose said the hospital has have taken a number of steps to stabilize finances, including requesting $4 million in emergency funding from the state of California; limiting hospital operations to the emergency department ancillary services related to emergency care and the community clinic; and developing a 60-day emergency plan that includes layoffs and furloughs, the cancellation or nonrenewal of contracts, reductions in medical services and contract and loan modifications.

Chapter 9 bankruptcy allows financially distressed cities, hospital districts and other public entities protection from creditors while they develop and negotiate plans for adjusting debt. A bankruptcy declaration is one of several possibilities on the table for the 51-bed hospital.

“There are many options: continued operations, a merger, Riverside University Health System coming in, a potential sale,” Lena Wade, the district’s general counsel, said, according to the Record. “All of that takes time, and many of these options require a vote of the residents of the district, so our advice is that we need to have this as an option.”
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CHOP develops AI agent for Epic

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has launched an AI-powered virtual assistant designed to support clinicians with various tasks in its Epic EHR system.

The tool, named CHIPPER, was developed by Stephon Proctor, PhD, a board-certified clinical psychologist and associate professor of clinical psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. Shakeeb Akhter, senior vice president and chief digital and information officer at CHOP, announced the rollout in a July LinkedIn post.

Mr. Akhter said CHIPPER uses multiple layers of CHOP’s digital infrastructure. The hospital’s enterprise technology and platform services teams partnered with Microsoft to deploy Azure, while internal data, analytics and AI teams developed “CHOP GPT,” a HIPAA-compliant large language model based on GPT-4.0. Integration with Epic enables CHIPPER to operate as a virtual agent within the EHR, with access to external tools including PubMed, the FDA and ClinicalTrials.gov.

“This is digital innovation at its finest,” Mr. Akhter wrote. “A great example of the magic that happens when technology teams make the latest technology accessible to those with deep clinical and technical expertise … who then develop innovative solutions that drive healthcare forward.”
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Boston Medical Center hires 2 leaders, expands 2 roles

Boston Medical Center Health System has appointed two new leaders and expanded the roles of two others.

The leadership changes are designed to support the integration of Boston Medical Center-Brighton and Boston Medical Center-South and broaden the team’s scope, according to a July 17 health system news release. The hospitals were acquired from Dallas-based Steward Health Care, which filed for bankruptcy in 2024, and were renamed in May.

David Cook has been named chief human resources officer. He will oversee HR strategy, planning and operations. Mr. Cook most recently served as executive vice president and human resources and chief people officer at Dallas-based AccentCare, a post-acute care provider.

Jason Sanders, MD, has been named chief clinical officer. In the newly created role, Dr. Sanders will lead population health, value-based care and network management efforts. He previously served as executive vice president and chief physician officer at Burlington, Vt.-based UVM Health Network.

Joe Camillus has been named system COO, formalizing his current role overseeing operations and financial performance across the system.

Anthony Hollenberg, MD, will serve as system chief physician executive in addition to his role as president of Boston Medical Center. In the expanded role, Dr. Hollenberg will oversee system chiefs of service and the leadership team to drive clinical quality.
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Kentucky hospital names 3 new leaders

Destiney Deschenes has been appointed COO of Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital in Somerset, Ky., part of Brentwood, Tenn.-based Lifepoint Health.

Ms. Deschenes most recently served as COO of Southside Medical Center in Petersburg, Va., part of Marriottsville, Md.-based Bon Secours, according to a July 16 hospital news release. She oversaw cardiovascular service lines, imaging, environmental services and $50 million in construction projects.

Additionally, Corey Clarke, BSN, RN, was promoted to assistant vice president of operations of Lake Cumberland Regional. He previously served as senior director of emergency services.

Tim Lessing has been named interim CFO. He brings 35 years of healthcare experience to the role, including in CEO, COO and CFO roles.
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UVA Health hospital CEO, medical school dean to exit for new roles

Wendy Horton, PharmD, CEO of UVA Health University Medical Center in Charlottesville, Va., will leave the organization in September for a new role.

Dr. Horton has been named senior vice president and president of adult care services at San Francisco-based UCSF Health, a UVA Health spokesperson confirmed to Becker’s on July 17.

Melina Kibbe, MD, the system’s chief health affairs officer and dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has been named the sole finalist for the presidency of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, according to a July 14 news release from UTHealth Houston.

The two exits follow the February resignation of K. Craig Kent, MD, who served as CEO of the system and the university’s executive vice president for health affairs.

During her tenure, Dr. Horton has played a key role in the medical center’s growth, Mitchell Rosner, MD, interim executive vice president for health affairs at the university, said in a statement shared with Becker’s. She joined UVA Health in 2020 after serving as chief administrative officer at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, according to her LinkedIn profile. An interim leader will be named soon, the statement said.

Dr. Kibbe has helped advance UVA Health’s 10-year strategic plan, which aims to position the system as the nation’s top public academic health system, according to a separate statement from Dr. Rosner.

She was appointed the 17th dean of the medical school in 2021 and has since overseen the hiring of more than 550 faculty members and 16 new chairs, along with launching new academic departments and clinical centers, according to the UTHealth Houston release.

She will succeed interim President LaTanya Love, MD, following a state-required 21-day waiting period.
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51 healthcare leaders’ takes on doing more with less

It’s a directive that hospitals and health systems of every size know well — whether sprawling academic medical centers, multistate nonprofit systems or rural, independent 25-bed hospitals.

While the phrase isn’t new, the urgency behind it is intensifying. The nation’s healthcare workforce remains fragile, forcing leaders to distinguish between staffing gaps that are temporary hurdles or structural limitations. Revenue projections for health systems have shifted dramatically — even within the last six months — as federal spending plans tighten, particularly around Medicaid. Funding for clinical research, once considered a durable pillar of U.S. healthcare post-World War II, is also undergoing one of its most significant shakeups, underscoring a stark reality: Even the most established sources of support are no longer guaranteed.

Against this backdrop, Becker’s set out to understand how health system leaders across the U.S. are interpreting and enacting the mandate to “do more with less” today. From June 9 to July 15, we spoke with executives across the country, in every type of market, hospital, and health system, to hear how they are navigating this evolving landscape.

Becker’s reached out to 51 health systems in 50 states and Washington, D.C., to find out one specific way each of them has redesigned a process or care model in the past year to serve more patients — without adding staff. The leaders span Alabama to Wyoming, from clinical to IT to finance to human resources to operations.

Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. Other health systems or hospitals are welcome to share their own approaches — we’ll continue adding responses to this piece as they come in. Please send responses to Mariah Taylor at m.taylor@beckershealthcare.com.

Alabama

Kerry Tolleson. CFO at Infirmary Health (Mobile)

As the largest nongovernmental healthcare system in Alabama, Infirmary Health remains focused on delivering high-quality care while adapting to financial pressures. Rising costs and stagnant reimbursement rates have made inpatient care especially challenging, requiring smarter, leaner models to sustain excellence.

To meet this challenge, Infirmary Health redesigned its clinical documentation integrity process without adding staff. Rather than expanding headcount, Infirmary Health overhauled how the CDI team operates, leveraging automation and intelligent chart prioritization to ensure specialists focus only on the records that require clinical attention. This redesign enables full daily review of inpatient records, expands CDI support across additional service lines, and incorporates the program into Infirmary Health’s Internal Medicine Residency as a core educational component.This transformation has strengthened both clinical and financial performance, delivering a 10-to-1 return on investment and demonstrating that meaningful care model improvements can be achieved through smarter processes, not just increased staffing.

Alaska

Mikal Canfield. Senior Manager of External Communications at Providence Alaska (Anchorage):

Providence Alaska Medical Center’s Daily Device Review Initiative, launched in January 2025, targets the prevention of two prevalent hospital-acquired infections: catheter-associated urinary tract infections and central line-associated bloodstream infections.

These infections are linked to medical devices, such as Foley catheters and central lines, which bypass natural body defenses, thereby increasing infection risk. The industry experiences CAUTI rates between 1.68 and 3.3 infections per 1,000 catheter days, influenced by various factors such as hospital patient population and location. U.S. hospitals report around 250,000 CLABSIs annually, with intensive care units accounting for approximately 80,000 of these cases.

Recognizing the best preventive measure is eliminating unnecessary catheter and central line use, PAMC initiated thorough daily assessments of all hospital patients with these devices. Meticulous evaluations of 31 central lines and 26 Foley catheters per day on average have drastically reduced infection rates. By the end of the first quarter of 2025, this initiative resulted in the removal of 102 central lines and 200 Foley catheters with physician approval, as they no longer met evidence-based placement criteria.

As a result, CAUTI rates fell 36% below the U.S. average and 25% below PAMC’s previous year figures, while CLABSI rates were 42% lower than the national mean and 60% lower than PAMC’s Q1 2024 statistics, including more than three months without a single CAUTI and nearly six months without a CLABSI in the intensive care unit at the hospital.

There is also a correlation between these infections and the need for additional treatment time in a hospital level of care. According to the National Institutes of Health, an average of two additional days in the hospital can be needed with these conditions. By working to reduce variability in clinical practice and assuring high quality of care for our patients, PAMC is increasing the availability of beds allowing the hospital to serve more patients and reducing wait times for new patients waiting to be admitted

Arizona Staci Dickerson. Executive Vice President and CFO at Banner Health (Phoenix):In healthcare, we think of clinical time as a perishable resource. If we don’t fill it, we lose it forever. That’s why we began rethinking our scheduling model post-COVID, leveraging technology to automate and insert intuitive thinking. Today, AI has made it even more efficient to meet patients where they are, identifying optimal time slots based on demand surges and available resources. We have tested the use of support agents to complete scheduling tasks with greater ease and accuracy. For example, in imaging, we have an automated waitlist that helps fill cancellations quickly, ensuring timely access to care and no waste of unused appointments. We’re using AI agents specifically trained for this purpose. Our physician practices, enterprise call center and IT leaders worked together to build this, opening access to thousands of additional appointment time slots in the communities we serve.

ArkansasLaura Wood. Program Administrator of UAMS Health Northwest Regional Campus (Fayetteville):Over the past year, UAMS Northwest redesigned our care model in northwest Arkansas by expanding access through the introduction of a midwifery clinic and the promotion of same-day access within our family medical centers. By leveraging existing infrastructure and collaborative care workflows, we were able to integrate certified nurse midwives into our care team and enhance women’s health services without increasing overall staffing levels. At the same time, we streamlined scheduling and triage processes to offer more same-day appointments, increasing capacity and improving responsiveness to patient needs. These changes allowed us to serve more patients efficiently and provide more comprehensive, accessible care to our community.

CaliforniaPatrick Rohan. CEO of Good Samaritan Hospital (San Jose): At Good Samaritan Hospital, our care assurance navigation team has expanded its reach without adding staff by implementing cross-coverage across hospitals within our system. By licensing nurses in multiple states, we’ve ensured patients with high-risk findings receive timely post-discharge care, regardless of location. This approach allows us to serve more patients efficiently while maintaining quality and continuity of care.

Colorado Daniel Kortsch, MD. Associate Chief of AI and Digital Health at Denver Health: One significant way Denver Health redesigned care delivery this past year to serve more patients without adding staff was through the implementation of an AI-enabled ambient solution. [The solution] captures patient-provider interactions in real-time, automatically generating accurate clinical notes with direct integration into Epic, our electronic health record. This innovative approach has dramatically reduced the documentation burden on our physicians, enabling them to spend more meaningful time focused on patient interactions rather than on manual note-taking. Since implementing [the solution], we’ve observed measurable improvements in provider efficiency, a meaningful reduction in provider burnout, and an increase in patient satisfaction. Physicians have reported more eye contact and a reduced cognitive burden during patient encounters, strengthening the overall quality of care and patient experience. At Denver Health, artificial intelligence helps our physicians reclaim face-to-face care time. [This] successful integration has allowed our clinical teams to expand their capacity to serve more patients effectively without the need for additional staffing resources.

Connecticut Gail Kosyla. CFO at Yale New Haven Health: The patient arrival function is a critical role that directly impacts both the patient experience and revenue stream. During the pandemic, all industries responded to the need for contactless interactions in creative ways. Self-service tools were in use, but underutilized. At the same time, we were challenged with staff turnover and recruitment, especially in patient-facing roles. Post-pandemic we were forced to redesign processes to achieve cost reductions, while still maintaining patient engagement. One example for Yale New Haven Health was the redesign of the patient arrival process. We used a combination of self-service technology, workflow redesign and virtual solutions to achieve our goal of completing critical patient arrival requirements with less staff.

Yale New Haven Health implemented a touch screen in the reception area that allows staff from a central pool of resources located virtually to assist the patient when needed. This solution is extremely cost-effective for providing coverage nights, weekends and at lower volume locations. We collect feedback from patients to see how they feel about the use of this technology. Overall, patients are comfortable with using self-service tools and they have positive comments on the virtual, live experience. Feedback has helped us to refine the process. For instance, the kiosk needed to be located in a way that maintained patient privacy and, when staff is present, verbal greeting and eye contact remains important to our patients.

At Yale New Haven Health, adoption of self-service tools and implementing innovative ways to reduce the dependency on staffing patient reception areas resulted in a 20% reduction in budgeted expenses related to front desk staffing while maintaining a positive patient experience.

DelawareRon Belfont. Interim Vice President and CIO of Bayhealth (Dover):In the past year, Bayhealth implemented a patient discharge lounge to enhance patient throughput without adding staff. This initiative, led by Bayhealth’s vice president of patient care services, Christine Keithly, DNP, RN, and Bayhealth’s director of patient flow and capacity, Staci Manning, BSN, RN, addresses a common bottleneck in healthcare systems: delayed discharges. By transitioning patients ready for discharge to a dedicated lounge, we free up hospital beds more quickly, allowing incoming patients to be admitted without delay.

Within our Epic system, the nursing team tracks patients in the discharge lounge using a uniquely identified bed designation. This streamlined process ensures efficient bed turnover and maintains clear patient tracking. We see opportunities to further enhance this workflow with targeted Epic builds to better indicate a patient’s status in the discharge lounge.

This initiative demonstrates Bayhealth’s commitment to creative, patient-centered solutions that optimize resources and improve care delivery under constrained conditions.

FloridaWilliam Carracino, MD. Vice President and Chief Digital Health Executive at Lee Health (Fort Myers): Lee Health has adopted AI-powered scribe technology across the health system to assist physicians in documenting patient visits in real time. This innovation enhances the patient experience by allowing providers to focus more on meaningful interactions, reducing administrative burden and helping create additional access for care.

Georgia

Scott Steiner. President and CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System (Albany):

We launched an intensive outpatient care program, setting aside space in one of our urgent care clinics and staffing it with two advanced practice providers, a nurse and a care coordinator. The clinic exclusively cares for patients with one of four chronic conditions that often result in ER visits and hospitalizations: congestive heart failure, COPD, diabetes and hypertension. We’ve had amazing success at helping these patients manage their conditions, avoid hospital stays and dramatically improve their health. It’s great for our community and our health system.

Hawaii

Ed Chan, MHA, RD. President of Hawaii Market, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals (Honolulu):

Kaiser Permanente Hawaii continues to find innovative ways to enhance the care experience for our members while supporting our dedicated care teams. One example is our Mom and Newborn Center on Maui, which improves access to postpartum care by offering a combined appointment for mothers and their newborns, reducing the need for multiple visits while strengthening continuity of care for both.

At the same time, we’re investing in Hawaii’s future healthcare workforce through initiatives like career exploration days, internships, fellowships and residency programs. These efforts help build a pipeline of local talent and ensure our communities have access to high-quality care now and in the years to come.

Idaho

Amy Geyer, PhD. Chief of Physics at St. Luke’s Health System (Boise):

St. Luke’s Health System has adopted an AI-driven tool that’s transforming radiation oncology workflows at St. Luke’s Cancer Institute.

[The tool] automates the labor-intensive process of medical contouring — outlining organs and tissues on scans to guide precise radiation therapy. Traditionally a time-consuming task, this AI solution now saves dosimetrists approximately 60 hours per week, allowing more time for patient care and critical planning.

Illinois

Drew Early. Senior Vice President and COO of Memorial Health (Springfield): Earlier this year, a nurse assigned to light duty began going through patient charts and sending reminders to general surgery and gastroenterology patients who were due for a colonoscopy. Those clinics did not have sufficient resources to contact the patients and schedule the procedures.

Our clinical team invests countless hours to ensure each radiation therapy plan is both safe and precise. [This AI-powered solution] helps us maintain that standard while significantly improving efficiency.

During the nurse’s four weeks on light duty, she scheduled more than 200 additional screening colonoscopies at Decatur Memorial Hospital, generating $526,400 in revenue while also ensuring these patients were up to date on this essential screening.Indiana Chris Weaver, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of Indiana University Health (Indianapolis): IU Health has undertaken several efforts to serve more patients, including developing a process to facilitate effective consults with specialists that allow patients to receive care close to home instead of being transferred to a facility that may or may not be close to where they live. Across the country, tertiary care hospitals are consumed caring for local patients while also receiving patients who transfer in for specialized care. There are times when a transfer is not required, and the patient can stay in their local community to receive excellent local care facilitated by a specialist via an interprofessional consultation. We have established a process to facilitate and document these consultations for reimbursement in order to further support the specialist staffing while allowing patients to stay close to home.

IowaBrett Taylor. Chief Technology Officer of UnityPoint Health (West Des Moines): Technology continues to be a game changer for our bedside teams at UnityPoint Health. Over the last 18 months, we have expanded our virtual nursing program to 12 hospitals and more than three dozen inpatient units across our organization. We have been able to accomplish this with telehealth carts that we build ourselves. We have also started integrating virtual nursing along with patient and care team information and patient education into the existing in-room entertainment system in some of our med-surg units. This will help us to further expand virtual nursing to see more patients and care for more people without adding staff.Our virtual nurses assist our bedside teams with admission and discharge processes, assessments, care plans, and patient and family education. This allows our bedside teams to focus more on what they do best, providing more personalized care to our patients

Kansas

Amy Kincade, BSN, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer. Salena Gillam, BSN, RN. Vice President and Assistant Chief Nursing Officer at Stormont Vail Health (Topeka):

Stormont Vail Health created a transitional care unit to support up to eight medically stable patients who are ready for discharge but lack a secure discharge plan. These patients may be waiting on insurance approvals or IV antibiotic arrangements, or face barriers related to housing or finances. In the TCU, standard hospital monitoring is discontinued, but patients continue to receive care from nurses and patient care technicians. This unit added two beds to the health system and helps free up space on medical-surgical floors. As a result, we can more efficiently admit patients from the emergency department or postoperative recovery.

Jill White, BSN, RN, Chief Nursing Officer and Lori Hartnett, Vice President of Operations at Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System:

At Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System, we have redesigned our Position Control process to standardize the data that leaders assess when analyzing the need to backfill or create a new position. Data around overtime, volume, staffing mix, etc. are evaluated to help make informed decisions and ensure that when we do add a position, it is necessary. Leaders are also encouraged to identify alternative solutions to staffing beyond adding new positions.

We have found that cross-training team members to work in different areas allows us to work together more as a team to fill gaps. Thinking about staffing collectively allows us to creatively fill open positions. Patient care technicians have been cross-trained to work shifts as phlebotomists, which fills a much-needed care delivery gap, particularly on the third shift. Our imaging department is cross-training team members across different modalities and we have invested in automation lines in the lab that decrease manual steps for team members. ICU nurses are working through our “One Call Admission Center” rather than being sent home during periods of low census. This covers open shifts, reduces overtime, allows ICU nurses to work their scheduled hours and improves team member satisfaction. Patient observers who typically provide remote monitoring to ensure patient safety, have been cross trained with additional responsibilities such as performing crash cart checks, audits, dietary assistance, and sitting one-on-one with patients. This has provided support to nursing, house supervisors, and food and nutrition services while maintaining focus on patient safety.

Kentucky Kim Tharp-Barrie, DNP. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Norton Healthcare (Louisville):We have found new ways to complement workforce needs through technology and innovation. Virtual nursing is being piloted at several locations across our system for patient admissions and discharges. This allows additional time for bedside nurses to provide direct patient care. While technology is a vital part of our plan, it’s coupled with innovation. Norton Healthcare’s Institute for Education and Development has created a joint-appointment model to increase clinical instructors in dedicated education units (DEUs). Faced with a shortage of nursing instructors nationwide, this collaboration with our school of nursing partners creates a more robust and work-ready pipeline.

Louisiana

Tiffany Murdock, PhD, MSN. Chief Nursing Officer at Ochsner Health (New Orleans):

At Ochsner, we’re incredibly proud of how our virtual nursing program is transforming the way we care for patients. We have reimagined virtual nursing care over the last three years with a centralized focus on admissions and discharges. This innovative approach focuses on the strengths of both bedside and virtual nurses to create a more flexible, efficient and supportive care model — and it’s making a real difference. Our virtual nursing team, made up of experienced nurses with backgrounds ranging from med-surg to critical care, works side by side (virtually!) with our bedside teams to cover 615 beds across 14 hospitals and 19 units. Thanks to this collaboration, we’ve been able to streamline discharges — over 22,500 so far — serving more than 90% of our discharges to home, and we’ve seen a 2% drop in readmissions in participating units.

One of the best parts? Our bedside nurses are getting more time to focus on patient care. By shifting some of the education and administrative work to our virtual team, we’ve saved around 7,500 bedside hours since we expanded our virtual nursing program in 2024. Patients are noticing the difference too — especially when it comes to discharge and medication education, where satisfaction scores and quality outcomes are increasing. This isn’t just about improving the numbers (though we love that, too!), it’s about making care more connected, more responsive and more fulfilling for everyone involved. With the right mix of technology, teamwork and purpose, we’re giving our nurses the space to do what they love and giving our patients the care they deserve.

Maine

Deborah Sanford, MSN, RN. Vice President and Nursing and Patient Care Services at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center (Bangor):

In the past year, our organization has focused on several areas to optimize efficiency throughout the system; one in particular: our medical imaging departments to serve more patients without increasing staff. One key area of improvement involved the MRI department, where we successfully identified significant opportunities to reduce turnaround times and streamline patient care, resulting in seeing more patients who are in the hospital. To achieve these improvements, we implemented several strategic changes.

We introduced enhanced electronic communication systems to enable rapid escalation of obstacles in securing timely patient appointments. MRI safety screening questionnaires were completed before patient transportation, aligning with industry best practices and increasing technologist efficiency. Additionally, we adjusted MRI schedules to prioritize inpatient and emergency department patients, reducing waiting times and accelerating patient movement throughout the care continuum. Our ongoing efforts to integrate discharge planning information into imaging staff’s daily routines further successfully optimized patient prioritization and care. These changes allow us to see more patients in the hospital and reduce our length of stay, therefore opening up overall access. By implementing strategic changes like these, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to delivering timely, high-quality care and improving patient outcomes — all with a focus on doing more, safety, with less.

Maryland

Alda Mizaku. Vice President and Chief Data and AI Officer, Children’s National Hospital (Washington, D.C.):

Over the past year, our organization has made significant strides in improving hospital efficiency through the development of a Throughput Dashboard — a data- and AI-powered solution co-created by our data and AI team in close partnership with clinical operations leaders. This tool provides real-time visibility into patient flow, helping frontline teams proactively identify and address efficiencies in care delivery.

By embedding proactive insights and operational triggers into daily workflows, the dashboard has enabled our hospitals to serve more patients without increasing staff. It’s a powerful example of how thoughtfully designed data products can unlock capacity, reduce delays, and ultimately enhance the patient experience across our system. This allows us to serve more patients and ensures that they can be seen promptly, improving their overall experience.

Massachusetts

Eric Alper, MD. Vice President and Chief Quality and Clinical Informatics Officer; and Penny Iannelli. Chief Transformation Officer at UMass Memorial Health (Worcester):

UMass Memorial Health offers a wide range of behavioral health services across our system. Since the onset of COVID-19, we have experienced a significant surge in demand for these services. Previously, referring providers were expected to choose a specific department for each behavioral health referral, without full visibility into key factors such as provider availability, patient location, or site capacity. This led to imbalanced workloads — some departments were overwhelmed, while others had underutilized capacity. To address this, a cross-functional improvement team led by Dr. Amy Harrington, Kimberly McGuigan-Robinson, Greg Mirhej and cross-entity representatives redesigned the referral process by implementing a centralized intake system. The referral order and associated workflows were restructured to support this model. In addition, cross-departmental huddles were established to review referrals together if needed, ensuring that each patient was directed to the most appropriate site based on need and availability. This team continues to meet regularly to optimize the process. As a result of these changes, more patients are receiving timely and appropriate behavioral healthcare.Additionally, to address prolonged boarding times in the Leominster Emergency Department, a cross-functional team launched a focused improvement initiative targeting the transition of admitted adult patients from the ED to inpatient units. A kaizen-style event held in July 2023 catalyzed the redesign of the bed placement process, emphasizing waste reduction, standardization and improved communication. The new workflow, implemented in October 2023 and refined through monthly improvement cycles, prioritized patient-centered care and operational efficiency. As a result, the Leominster ED reduced its median admit decision to patient departure time from 7.9 hours to 3.3 hours by May 2024 — meeting the national benchmark and achieving a 58% improvement.

Michigan

Steve Frazier, RN, ACN-RN. Director of Quality and Patient Safety Post-Acute at MyMichigan Health (Midland):

Improving patient access to care remains a top priority for MyMichigan Health. In late 2024, a dedicated workgroup was established to evaluate scheduling and waitlist management processes for medical appointments in the ambulatory setting. This comprehensive review of practice workflows revealed a lack of standardization in how new patient appointment slots were filled following cancellations or rescheduling. Some practices utilized the electronic medical record to manage waitlists, while others relied on manual methods, such as handwritten notebooks. In both scenarios, front office staff reported challenges in pausing their workflows to contact patients in a timely manner, which could result in unfilled appointment slots or their reallocation for other appointment types — further exacerbating access issues for new patients. To tackle this challenge, the workgroup partnered with our information technology team to roll out [an Epic] feature for new patient appointments. Now, when a new patient is scheduled, they are automatically added to the waitlist in Epic. If their appointment is 15 days or more, and an earlier appointment becomes available, [the solution] sends a real-time notification through, giving the patient the chance to claim the slot — no phone calls or staff intervention needed. The new patient appointment process was initially piloted in our Family Medicine and Internal Medicine practices. Due to its early success, the initiative has recently expanded to additional select specialty locations. The results have been highly encouraging, both in terms of operational efficiency and patient experience.

Over the past seven months, family and internal medicine clinics have sent 31,078 offers for 12,030 available new patient appointment slots. Of those, 2,852 appointments were successfully filled through [the Epic-based solution], yielding a 24% fill rate. More recently, the process was implemented across several specialty practices, including cardiology, urology, gastroenterology, neurology, rheumatology and OB-GYN. Within the last three months, these specialties collectively sent 2,744 offers for 881 new patient appointment slots, with 312 filled via patient acceptance — achieving a 35% success rate. This initiative not only improves patient navigation and reduces delays in care, but it also alleviates administrative burden for staff, contributing to higher satisfaction and better clinic throughput. The success of the new patient appointment process underscores the value of automation in optimizing appointment utilization and advancing access to care across our system.

Minnesota Joshua Shepherd. President at Buffalo Hospital and Cambridge Medical Center:Health systems are being challenged to do more with fewer resources, and for us in rural areas, that pressure is especially acute. We’re meeting it by being intentional — rethinking what must be transferred and what can stay local. We’ve deployed telehospitalists and specialty telehealth programs to support bedside care without needing every specialist on site. This extends the reach of hard to find specialists and lowers our cost. We’ve also implemented tools like Ceribell, an AI platform that helps bring EEG- seizure screening to rural sites. This has significantly reduced the need to transfer patients. It’s about making smart use of technology to extend our reach and enhance our capabilities.We’re also investing in high-value services like cardiac MRI to keep more advanced care close to home and improve patient satisfaction. These aren’t just cost-saving moves — they’re part of a broader strategy to sustain rural healthcare by building smarter, more capable systems that support both clinicians and communities better. Simply doing more with less is not a sustainable strategy, we have to use technology and our talented teams to help us come up with innovative new ways of providing care. Not only the same level of care, but a higher level that is more affordable.

Melanie Wilson. Interim CFO of Essentia Health (Duluth):

Over the past year, Essentia Health has focused on redesigning our ambulatory access model to serve more patients — without adding staff — by going back to the fundamentals. We undertook a targeted approach to optimize provider scheduling templates, focusing on areas with the greatest opportunity. We focused on removing unnecessary blocks, session limits and holds to ensure that every available clinical hour could be used productively to better serve the patients who entrust us with their care. We also aligned clinician contact hours with expected clinic time to maximize appointment availability and reduce variation across sites.To support these changes, we introduced structured accountability and real-time problem-solving. Daily huddles among clinical, operational and scheduling teams address access barriers as they arise, while weekly leadership report-outs keep performance visible and aligned with goals. We also launched Access GEMBA walks to engage leaders and frontline teams in identifying obstacles and opportunities for improvement directly at the point of care. These disciplined, data-driven practices have allowed us to expand access and improve patient throughput, demonstrating how creativity and operational rigor can deliver results even under tight resource constraints.

MississippiJeremy Tinnerello. Market President of St. Dominic Health (Jackson): As a regional tertiary hospital, we have a responsibility to assist rural Mississippi hospitals in broadening access to care for patients in need of the advanced services we provide. St. Dominic Health developed a predictability tool for bed availability that adjusts in real time, allowing our transfer center to become more proactive in transfer acceptance. This effort has resulted in a 36% improvement in transfer acceptance, providing tertiary levels of care to more than 3,000 additional patients over the course of the year. These results were accomplished with process change and internally built predictability tools that required no additional staff.

MissouriMeagan Weber. CEO of Scotland County Hospital (Memphis): We implemented a walk-in clinic that is open during our clinic hours and our providers work together on getting those patients in during the day. We also use telehealth for services when necessary, available during clinic hours. Walk-in appointments have helped with convenience to our community, and this has really helped increase our commercial patient usage, as it gives working families flexibility to get into a provider. Telehealth services also add flexibility to our providers, as they can see patients quickly and also at patients’ convenience.

Montana

Sarah Yoder. Director of Marketing and Communications, Benefis Health System (Great Falls):

Benefis Community Care has integrated a digital communications and collaboration platform into their existing home medical equipment automated resupply program. Allowing customers the ability to communicate their re-supply needs through their individualized preferred channel of communication. These technologies empower customer engagement by reducing manual processes that now are easily handled by the software. Customers can easily place and receive resupply orders using these digital platforms while reducing employee touches. This has given our staff more time to spend with the customers and has also increased our geographical footprint with the convenient drop ship capabilities. Benefis Community Care currently uses this platform combination for their continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) customers, and are working to expand this into other product lines such as ostomy, urology and diabetic supplies.

Nebraska

Kelly Vaughn, MSN, RN. Chief Nursing Officer at Nebraska Medicine (Omaha):

We often have patients who are medically ready for discharge but don’t have a post-acute destination available for many different reasons. What we’ve done is cohort those patients onto a single unit. This approach has allowed us to use our medical, advanced practice provider and nursing teams differently. Since these patients no longer require acute care, we can staff the unit similarly to a post-acute setting. That adjustment helps us care for more patients and creates additional capacity in other units, improving access to care in the acute care environment.

It’s helped our medical teams, too. They don’t need to round on those patients as frequently, just like they would in a true post-acute environment. And our nursing staffing is aligned with the needs of this specific population, rather than the higher-acuity needs of traditional inpatient units. As a result, we’ve decreased length of stay by 4.27% and increased transfers into Nebraska Medicine by 11.4% — especially from smaller rural hospitals or facilities that aren’t equipped to provide the level of care we offer. That’s been a big win for us.

NevadaChuck Podesta. CIO of Renown Health (Reno):

The introduction of self-service options has significantly transformed our organization, enhancing both efficiency and patient experience. Over the past year, we have implemented self-service kiosks in high-traffic areas such as imaging and lab spaces. These kiosks enable patients to swiftly check themselves in for appointments, thereby eliminating the need to wait in line for a patient access representative to assist them. This initiative has allowed us to manage increased patient volumes without the need to add additional full-time employees.

Furthermore, we have integrated self-scheduling for imaging, lab, specialty and primary care patients through our Renown website and patient portal, MyChart. Given the substantial growth in our region, this self-scheduling feature has been instrumental in maintaining our call center operations without necessitating an increase in full-time employee volumes.

New HampshireTiffany Haynes, MSN, RN. Chief Nursing Officer of North Country Healthcare (Whitefield):

By leveraging real-time data, North Country Healthcare was able to achieve barcode scanning rates of 99% without the need to hire additional staff or invest in extra resources. Through improved visibility into performance with daily barcode scanning reports, frontline teams were empowered to make immediate adjustments, driving consistency and compliance. This strategic use of existing tools not only optimized workflows but also significantly enhanced patient safety and reinforced a culture of high reliability across our organization.

New Jersey

Robyn Boniewicz. Vice President of AtlantiCare Health Network, Christina Umosella, Assistant Vice President, Transformation and Business Development at AtlantiCare (Morristown):

At AtlantiCare, we have prioritized many transformational strategies to help reduce administrative burden on team members and improve both efficiency and care delivery. One of the most impactful clinical improvements we’ve made over the past year has been workflow enhancements, including pre-visit preparation and post-visit care coordination. What used to be a fragmented workflow is now a coordinated system grounded in consistent, evidence-based standards.

This redesign has reduced patient wait times, eliminated unnecessary testing, and improved safety and care quality, without adding headcount. It’s a smarter, more cohesive way to function and it’s helping us meet rising demand with the resources we already have.

By streamlining workflows, empowering subject matter experts, and embracing a test-and-learn mindset, we’ve built a more agile, efficient system that serves more patients without adding headcount.

Key initiatives include:

Pre-visit financial validation: We reallocated subject-matter experts, including customer service representatives, to confirm insurance eligibility and benefits before patient arrival. This has expedited the front-end experience, improved copay collection, and reduced denials.

Centralized administrative support: Clinical administrative medical assistants now manage medication refills, prior authorizations, and other nonprovider tasks via the patient portal. This shift removes the administrative burden from onsite MAs, enabling them to focus fully on in-person care and provider support.

Centralized observation unit care model: In our centralized observation unit, a cohorted model staffed by dedicated nurses, advanced practice nurses, and hospitalists delivers stable, continuous, and appropriate care, leading to reduced lengths of stay, smoother care transitions, and more personalized attention during observation stays.

RN-led after-hours triage: We redesigned our after-hours care approach so registered nurses handle triage as the first clinical contact. When patients call in the evening, they are routed RNs for support, reducing average nightly provider call volume by 85% while ensuring timely and appropriate care.

New Mexico

Wayne Gillis. President and CEO at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services (Gallup):

The new Medicaid rules outlined in the federal reform bill will cause a wave of disenrollment due to complex recertification processes. This puts patients at risk of losing coverage and creates financial strain on hospitals due to increased uncompensated care.

We cannot afford to be passive. This playbook outlines a clear, multi-pronged strategy to help our patients stay covered — protecting both community health and organizational stability.

Preventing avoidable Medicaid coverage losses by building a hospitalwide, patient-centered support system that helps individuals retain or renew their eligibility under the new rules. The key pillars of this strategy are to establish us as a Medicaid enrollment and renewal hub, deploy medicaid navigators in key care areas, activate a medicaid outreach task force, build partnerships with state and community organizations, use technology for smart outreach and educate our workforce. The program also includes a monthly dashboard that shows the financial impact (bad debt avoided), navigator activity and Medicaid reenrollment rates for uninsured ED visits. We are retraining key staff members and optimizing their current workload to redeploy to support the Medicaid retention playbook.

New York

Nader Mherabi. Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Information Officer of NYU Langone Health (New York City):Our commitment to putting patients first drives every technology decision we make — ensuring that innovation eliminates barriers and creates seamless access to the exceptional care our teams provide.

We are centering patients’ ability to navigate their care through our MyChart platform. By integrating automated notifications and real-time rescheduling capabilities, we’ve turned what used to be a frustrating experience — dealing with cancellations and scheduling conflicts — into seamless, patient-controlled access to care.

When an appointment becomes available due to a cancellation, patients receive instant notifications and can reschedule with just a few taps on their phone. This enhances convenience and removes barriers that prevent patients from getting the care they need when they need it. We’ve seen significant improvements in appointment utilization and patient satisfaction because we’ve put the power of access directly in patients’ hands.

Our clinical teams can put more focus on providing exceptional care rather than managing complex scheduling logistics. This initiative has allowed us to serve more patients more efficiently while enhancing the experience for everyone involved. It’s an example of how technology can make healthcare more human.

North Carolina Terry McDonnell, DNP, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive at Duke University Health System (Durham):Like many systems, we’ve been challenged to do more with less — but what’s set Duke apart is our commitment to co-design. One example: we worked directly with bedside nurses and clinical engineers to reimagine our rounding workflow using AI-supported clinical data dashboards. It didn’t require new hires — it required trust in our teams, and a willingness to redesign around their insight. The result? A more seamless patient experience and improved staff capacity without increasing headcount.

North Dakota

Jeremy Cauwels, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Sanford Health (Dickinson and Lidgerwood):

One of the most effective ways we’ve expanded access without adding staff is through virtual care — particularly for specialty care in rural communities.

A great example is our virtual pediatric pulmonology program. James Wallace, MD, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., treats children with complex lung conditions such as asthma and cystic fibrosis. Thanks to virtual technology, he now sees patients more than 500 miles away — a 7.5-hour drive — in Dickinson, N.D. From his office, he can listen to a child’s lungs, review breathing tests and consult with families and local providers in real-time. This reduces windshield time and allows him to reach more patients.

Another example is our rural satellite clinic in Lidgerwood, N.D. — a town of 500 people located more than an hour from the nearest major medical center in Fargo. Staffed by a nurse, patients come in to connect virtually for primary care, urgent care, follow-up visits and specialty consults. This clinic was originally open only a few days a week due to limited provider availability, but investing in virtual care infrastructure has enabled us to respond directly to the community’s request for consistent, local access to care five days a week.

This model allows us to reach more patients across the rural Midwest with the same number of staff, improving access and easing the burden on families by bringing world-class care closer to home.

Ohio

Jill Evans, MSN, RN. Chief Nursing Informatics Officer and Executive Director Virtual Care Enterprise at MetroHealth (Cleveland):

Digital solutions are crucial in addressing workforce shortages, reducing burnout and transforming care delivery. Investing in these tools is not just about innovation; it’s about creating a sustainable healthcare system that prioritizes patient well-being and nurse satisfaction.

MetroHealth’s investment in digital tools spans enhancements to our EHR, virtual nursing capabilities, and AI-powered technologies for personalized care. Reflecting on the past three to five years, we’ve been deliberate in our technology choices for nursing. The Glick Center, opened in 2022, was a result of years of planning and discussions with nursing leadership. We strategically deployed mobile technologies, such as iPhones for documentation, before the opening to ease the transition. The new tower introduced advanced technologies, including digital whiteboards integrated with our EHR and RTLS, displaying employee photos in patient rooms. Digital door signs outside patient rooms provide caregivers with essential information from our EHR before entering.

We leveraged the iPads implemented on the units in 2023 to begin our virtual nursing program, using existing technology to create meaningful change at the bedside. This initiative has helped ease the burden on inpatient nurses by supporting routine tasks and patient interactions virtually, allowing bedside nurses to focus more on direct patient care. By optimizing our current digital infrastructure, we are not only addressing critical challenges like nursing shortages and burnout but also improving overall nurse satisfaction and retention.

OklahomaPidge Lohr, DNP, RN. Chief Nursing Officer of Integris Health (Oklahoma City):

One of the most impactful ways we’ve expanded care delivery without increasing staffing is by empowering nurses to be the architects of their own work through a revitalized shared governance structure. Rather than retrofitting top-down changes, frontline nurses now lead the redesign of workflows and processes.Including nurses before launching any initiative that affects their workflows is a critical element of effective change management. As the professionals closest to patient care, nurses offer invaluable insights into daily operations, the feasibility of proposed changes, and potential unintended consequences. Engaging them early ensures that solutions are practical, safe and sustainable, and it prevents costly rework down the line. Beyond operational benefits, involving nurses as true partners honors their expertise, builds trust and significantly increases the likelihood of successful adoption and meaningful improvements in both clinical and patient outcomes.

A powerful example is the nurse-led standardization of product use, such as foam cup sizes, which is projected to save the system over $200,000 annually. These kinds of initiatives showcase how empowering clinical teams to lead operational decisions not only improves workflow but also contributes meaningfully to financial stewardship.

While our virtual nursing model was not developed through shared governance, its implementation was strengthened by the feedback of frontline nurses. By offloading admissions, documentation and patient education to virtual RNs, we’ve extended capacity at the bedside — allowing us to serve more patients, more safely, with the team we already have.

Nathan Robinson. IT Director at Choctaw Nation Health Services Authority (Talihina):

One significant advancement has been the deployment of a robust profile management solution. This allows staff to move seamlessly throughout the organization without losing their personalized settings, ensuring a consistent and familiar work environment — regardless of location or task.

We’ve also introduced an integrated [online] fax solution, significantly reducing the manual burden associated with traditional faxing. This improvement frees up valuable time and resources, allowing staff to dedicate more attention to patient care.

Collaboration across departments has been key to identifying and streamlining time-consuming manual processes. From automating spreadsheet tracking to standardizing reporting, our teams have developed solutions that minimize errors, improve efficiency and ensure consistent, actionable data.

Over the past year, we successfully implemented an upgraded EMR system with Epic. This update offers enhanced integration with third-party applications and provides improved visibility for both healthcare providers and patients.

Oregon

Anne Daly, RN. Chief Compliance Officer at Samaritan Health Services (Corvallis): Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center improved patient throughput and reduced hospital stays through cross-functional collaboration.

The effort resulted in a significant reduction in average length of stay for patients using hospitalist services, which went from 6.96 days in April 2024 to 5.51 days in April 2025. This allowed hospitalists to see 86 more new patients that month.

Key changes included standardized rounds, better discharge planning and improved patient placement. The initiative cut medically ready-for-discharge patients in beds by 15–22%, increased surgical bed availability and boosted operational efficiency — allowing the hospital to serve more patients while maintaining care quality.

PennsylvaniaMitchell Schnall, MD, PhD. Senior Vice President for Data and Technology Solutions at Penn Medicine (Philadelphia):Given our overcrowded ED and inpatient facilities, we have developed a program called PATH (Practical Alternative to Hospitalization). Patients who might normally be admitted for short stays and observations are being sent home with care coordination and home care support. We have been able to avoid hospitalizations with low bounce-back rates and high patient satisfaction, while more quickly moving patients out of the ED, also impacting boarding.

Rhode Island

Thomas Wold, DO. Chief Medical Officer at Kent Hospital (Warwick):

We’ve optimized patient throughput without increasing staff by centralizing our multidisciplinary ‘Blitz Rounds’ and pairing them with a systemwide ‘Code Triage’ escalation process. Blitz Rounds bring together physicians, nurses, case managers and support staff each day to review every inpatients’ care plan in a focused, collaborative setting. This real-time coordination has significantly reduced delays in care decisions and discharge planning.

When barriers to movement arise — such as bottlenecks in discharge or ICU capacity — our Code Triage protocol triggers immediate cross-departmental action, enabling safe, timely transitions. Together, these initiatives have meaningfully lowered the average length of stay, allowing us to care for more patients using the same staffing resources. It’s a testament to what’s possible when teams are empowered to act quickly, communicate clearly, and keep patients at the center of every decision.

South Carolina

Amy Linsin. Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Prisma Health (Greenville):

We partnered with WellStreet Urgent Care and quickly multiplied the number of patients we’ve seen. We’ve been actively measuring how many new patients we gain at Prisma Health based on referrals — not those who have already visited us, but individuals who have never accessed our system. On average, 22% of people who visit one of our urgent care centers go on to make a first-time appointment with Prisma Health. These are individuals who may not have primary care doctors or who have only interacted with our system through the ER. We consider that joint venture a real positive.

South Dakota

Amanda Saeger. CFO of Dakota Vascular (Sioux Falls):

By creating a dedicated phone room for patient calls, Dakota Vascular has centralized communication and reduced disruptions to clinical staff. This focused environment allows existing team members to handle calls more efficiently and consistently. As a result, patient inquiries are resolved faster, improving service without the need for additional hires.

TennesseeAmit Vashist, MD. Senior Vice-President and Chief Clinical Officer of Ballad Health Tennessee/Virginia (Johnson City): One of the most impactful redesigns we undertook across the clinical enterprise at Ballad Health this past year was the creation of our Outcomes and Intelligence Hub, a result of the collaboration between our Center for Clinical Transformation and Clinical Informatics. This centralized, Power BI-enabled platform brings together data from disparate sources like our EHR, public databases and other systems into a unified, real-time view of clinical and patient care outcomes. We launched this initiative in response to what we were consistently hearing from across the system. Our nurses, physicians, and executive leadership were not asking for more reports or metrics. They were seeking clarity and relevance. They wanted actionable insights that could guide decisions and improve care at the bedside. The Hub supports this by helping teams connect information to impact and turn insights into scalable action, all without adding new staff.The purpose behind this work is to bring systemness across a complex enterprise, reduce fragmentation and eliminate siloes. While we have made meaningful strides in outcomes and care transformation, the Outcomes and Intelligence Hub gives us the infrastructure to build upon that progress. As W. Edwards Deming, the renowned quality guru and systems thinker, noted a system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. In a healthcare environment flooded with data, this Hub brings order, focus and alignment. We started with descriptive analytics and are moving quickly toward predictive and ultimately prescriptive capabilities. Each layer we add will strengthen decision-making and front-line performance. This is not a static tool. It is a living platform built to evolve with our mission, helping ensure that what gets measured gets managed and what gets managed improves.

TexasErin Asprec, Executive Vice President and COO at Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston): Two major initiatives have helped us serve more patients without the addition of staff. First is our Patient Flow Center. We now have line of sight on all our acute care beds across the system and their status. Utilizing care leveling documents and algorithms designed by multidisciplinary teams in each service line, we have optimized the utilization of our beds placing the right patient in the right care setting. Second, we underwent a “clinical care redesign.” Through this initiative, we worked with multidisciplinary teams by service line and utilized evidence-based medicine to establish consistent care pathways across the system to decrease care variation. This has successfully resulted in decreased lengths of stay and utilization costs in supplies, drugs and tests.

UtahMandy Richards, DNP, RN. Chief Nursing Executive at Intermountain Health (Salt Lake City):At Intermountain Health, we’ve embraced care model redesign as a strategic imperative to address the dual challenge of a shrinking nursing workforce and rising patient demand. One of our most promising innovations is the integration of AI-powered ambient listening technology, which we implemented after a time motion study revealed nurses were spending 27% of their time on documentation. By reducing this burden, we’re enabling nurses to focus more on patient care, connection, and education.

Working with our partners, we’ve tailored this technology to meet nursing-specific needs, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive—nurses are embracing it, and patients are noticing the difference. Early results show that documentation is entered into the chart 38% faster, and we anticipate even greater time savings as we continue to evaluate outcomes. This is a compelling example of how technology can drive efficiency, allowing our nurses to spend more time with patients.

VermontPhil Rau. Communications and Media Specialist, UVM Health (Burlington):Our systemwide Emergency Department staffing model, which delivers high-quality care at EDs across UVM Health Network, is generating a ton of positive patient feedback, and is a really effective and innovative approach to providing high-acuity, high-quality emergency care in rural settings where it is more likely physicians must deal with limited clinical resources, training opportunities and infrequent but time-sensitive emergencies.The model – Our Department of Emergency Medicine is built on a medical group staffed by about 100 EM physicians who work across our seven emergency departments (including Plattsburgh, Malone, Elizabethtown and Ticonderoga, N.Y.). The physicians are credentialed at multiple locations and practice at two or more ED locations, with special attention given to ensuring each ED is staffed by physicians with a diversity of clinical experience.

For example: an ED physician may spend part of their week at Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone (a small critical access …

24 large health systems growing bigger

As merger and acquisition activity picks up post-pandemic, dozens of large health systems are expanding their footprints — adding hospitals, building regional dominance and solidifying national reach.

Here are 24 large health systems that have grown in quarters or are planning strategic mergers or acquisitions this year:

Editor’s note: This is not an exhaustive list.

1. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, part of Charlotte, N.C.-based Advocate Health, acquired Hugh Chatham Health in Elkin, N.C., in July. Hugh Chatham Health includes an 81-bed acute care hospital and a medical group with more than 70 providers across 25 locations. Advocate Health is the third-largest nonprofit health system in the U.S.

2. Bethlehem, Pa.-based St. Luke’s University Health Network acquired Sellersville, Pa.-based Grand View Health in July. Grand View is St. Luke’s 16th campus. St. Luke’s is a nonprofit system with 21,000 employees and more than $4 billion in revenue.

3. New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health and Danbury, Conn.-based Nuvance Health merged into a 28-hospital system in May. The integrated system has more than 1,050 ambulatory care sites, 104,000 employees and annual revenues of about $23 billion.

4. Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare acquired eight Illinois hospitals from St. Louis-based Ascension in March. The transaction increased the number of hospitals in Prime’s portfolio to 53. Prime also plans to acquire Lewiston-based Central Maine Healthcare, entering another new state, by the end of 2025. Central Maine Healthcare is an integrated health system with three hospitals, a cancer center and network of physician practices across the state.

5. Nashville Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare acquired Catholic Medical Center, a 330-bed regional system in Manchester, N.H., in February. HCA, a 187-hospital system, now operates four hospitals in New Hampshire, including Parkland Medical Center in Derry, Portsmouth Regional Hospital and Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester. The for-profit system also acquired Lehigh Acres, Fla.-based Lehigh Regional Medical Center from Prime Healthcare in February. The 53-bed hospital — renamed HCA Florida Lehigh Hospital — is part of HCA’s west Florida division.

6. Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based AdventHealth acquired ShorePoint Health-Port Charlotte (Fla.) and certain assets of ShorePoint Health-Punta Gorda (Fla.) from Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health System in March. AdventHealth acquired the hospitals for $260 million.

7. Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health and Marshfield (Wis.) Clinic Health System merged into a 56-hospital system with about 56,000 employees and two health plans, effective Jan. 1, 2025.

8. Columbus-based OhioHealth in January acquired Morrow County Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Mount Gilead, Ohio, becoming the health system’s 16th hospital. In the past two years, OhioHealth has acquired two other hospitals — Van Wert (Ohio) Hospital and Southeastern Medical Center in Cambridge — and opened Pickerington Methodist Hospital.

9. Greenville, S.C.-based Prisma Health in December acquired Maryville, Tenn.-based Blount Memorial Hospital, a 304-bed, nonprofit community hospital. Blount Memorial is the only hospital that Prisma operates outside of South Carolina.

10. Risant Health, a nonprofit formed under Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, acquired Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger and Greensboro, N.C.-based Cone Health last year. Risant plans to acquire about three to four other health systems to become a company with up to $35 billion in annual revenue over the next five years.

11. Morgantown.-based West Virginia University Health System has quickly grown into a 25-hospital, regional system after a string of acquisitions in recent years, including:

Weirton Medical Center

Grant Memorial Hospital (Petersburg)

Thomas Health (Charleston)

12. In November, The University of Alabama System acquired Ascension St. Vincent’s Health System, which includes five hospitals, for $450 million. The deal increased the number of hospitals in UAB Health’s footprint to 17.

13. Irving, Texas-based Christus Health, which comprises more than 60 hospitals, acquired Wadley Regional Medical Center in Texarkana, Texas, in November.

14. Peoria, Ill.-based OSF HealthCare acquired Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital, an 80-bed facility in Dixon, Ill., in September 2024.

15. Orlando (Fla.) Health in October 2024 acquired Tenet’s 70% majority ownership interest in Birmingham, Ala.-based Brookwood Baptist Health for about $910 million in cash. The transaction includes five hospitals:

Brookwood Baptist Medical Center (Birmingham)

Princeton Baptist Medical Center (Birmingham)

Walker Baptist Medical Center (Jasper, Ala.)

Shelby Baptist Medical Center (Alabaster, Ala.)

Citizens Baptist Medical Center (Talladega, Ala.)

The health system also acquired three Steward Health Care hospitals in Florida. The $439 million deal included Rockledge (Fla.) Regional Medical Center, Melbourne (Fla.) Regional Medical Center, Sebastian (Fla.) River Medical Center and some of Steward Medical Group’s practices.

16. In September, St. Louis-based Mercy acquired Ascension Via Christi Hospital in Pittsburg, Kan. Mercy, a 50-hospital system, now has three hospitals in Kansas: Mercy Hospital Pittsburg, Mercy Hospital Columbus and Mercy Specialty Hospital-Southeast Kansas in Galena.

17. Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health and Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Health Network merged to form a 32-hospital system with more than 700 care sites in August 2024. The combined entity creates one of the 15 largest non-profit health systems in the U.S.

18. UCSF Health acquired two hospitals — San Francisco-based Saint Francis Memorial Hospital and St. Mary’s Medical Center — from Dignity Health in August 2024. As part of the $100 million acquisition, the hospitals shed their religious affiliation and are now known as UCSF Health Saint Francis and UCSF Health St. Mary’s. UCSF will invest $100 million to support the integration of the hospitals over the next two years.

19. MyMichigan Health acquired three Michigan hospitals and their related assets from St. Louis-based Ascension in August. Midland-based MyMichigan also acquired the Ascension Medical Group care sites and physician practices associated with the hospitals, which include:

Ascension St. Mary’s (Saginaw)

Ascension St. Mary’s (Standish)

Ascension St. Joseph (Tawas City)

20. Washington (Pa.) Health, a two-hospital system, joined Pittsburgh-based UPMC in June 2024. As part of the affiliation, UPMC will invest at least $300 million over a decade to improve clinical services at the two hospitals, which have been rebranded as UPMC Washington and UPMC Greene hospitals.

21. Morristown, N.J.-based Atlantic Health System signed a definitive agreement to acquire New Brunswick, N.J.-based Saint Peter’s Healthcare System in June 2024. Under the proposed transaction, Atlantic Health will take Saint Peter’s under its wing to become its single corporate member. Saint Peter’s Catholic mission and identity would be maintained under the deal.

22. Orange, Calif.-based UCI Health acquired four hospitals for $975 million from Tenet Healthcare’s Pacific Coast Network in March 2024. They include:

Fountain Valley Regional Hospital

Lakewood Regional Medical Center

Los Alamitos Medical Center

Placentia-Linda Hospital

23. In March 2024, Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health spent about $550 million to acquire two hospitals from Tenet: Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo and Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton, Calif. The hospitals have been rebranded as Adventist Health Sierra Vista and Adventist Health Twin Cities.

24. Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health spent $2.4 billion to acquire three hospitals from Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare in February 2024. They include:

East Cooper Medical Center (Mount Pleasant, S.C.)

Hilton Head (S.C.) Hospital

Coastal Carolina Hospital (Hardeeville, S.C.)

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3 medical device recalls

Medical devices are essential to patient safety, addressing critical issues in devices that may pose health risks.

Here are some of the latest recalls reported to the FDA:

Integra LifeSciences recalls Codman disposable perforators due to risk of disassembly

Integra LifeSciences has recalled certain Codman Disposable Perforators and Craniotomy kits due to a weld defect that may cause the device to disassemble before, during or after use. This issue may result in damage to the dura, bleeding, cerebral injury or irreversible brain damage. Ten injuries have been reported. Users are advised to stop using the product, quarantine inventory and return affected lots.

Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare recalls iGo2 car charger cords due to overheating risk

Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare is recalling certain DV6X-619 Rev E DC car adapter cords used with the iGo2 Portable Oxygen Concentrator after reports of the cords becoming hot or melting during use. The issue may result in burns or thermal injuries; as a result, users were advised to destroy impacted cords and request free replacements through the company’s recall website. Two injuries have been reported.

Dexcom recalls G6, G7, ONE and ONE+ receivers due to speaker failure

Dexcom has recalled certain models of its G6, G7, ONE and ONE+ glucose monitor receivers because of a speaker malfunction that could prevent critical audio alerts from sounding. Affected units may fail to warn users about dangerously low or high blood glucose levels, posing a risk of seizures, unconsciousness or death. Dexcom has urged customers to test the speaker during charging, check their device serial number online and request a free replacement if needed. At least 56 injuries have been reported.
The post 3 medical device recalls appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.

A population health approach to postmenopausal osteoporosis and establishing a post fracture care program

Every ~20 seconds in the U.S a woman aged 50 or older suffers a fracture.1 These fractures result in higher rates of hospitalization than heart attack, stroke, or breast cancer, while having potentially life-altering consequences for patients.2,3,4

Despite increasing fracture rates, ~4 out of 5 postmenopausal women remain undiagnosed and untreated for osteoporosis one year after fracture.5,* To address this gap, health institutions need effective systems to follow up with and treat at-risk patients.

At Becker’s 12th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable and in a new bone health podcast sponsored by Amgen, two experts shared insights from their successful post-fracture care programs.

Andrea Singer, MD, FACP, CCD, from MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, and Andrea Fox, DMSc, MMS, MHA, PA-C, from Stanford Health Care, sat down with Christen Buseman, PhD, director of IDN strategy and marketing for Amgen, to discuss strategies that have transformed patient care management at their institutions.

1) Taking a multidisciplinary approach

The traditional care journey often fails to provide appropriate treatment and education after a patient experiences a fracture.[6] This gap exists largely because it’s unclear which specialty should take responsibility for osteoporosis follow-up, according to Singer and Fox.

“Since osteoporosis doesn’t belong to any one specialty, the beauty of that is anyone can take charge. The other side of the sword is everybody thinks somebody else is going to take care of it,” Singer said.

To prevent patients from falling through the cracks, cross-specialty collaboration is crucial. At Stanford, Fox engaged with various teams to enhance referrals to the program and ensure comprehensive care.

She also highlighted how remote care advancements have expanded access for patients in areas lacking specialists.

2) Building a scalable foundation

After securing pilot funding to study post-fracture care follow-up rates at MedStar, Singer recognized the need for systemwide change. “We were following only 19% of people 50 years or older after a fracture,” she said during the conference.

She garnered support for a comprehensive post-fracture care program model now being scaled throughout the system, with established North and South regional programs. She achieved this by demonstrating the need, developing the service, building the team and establishing the business model. To lay the groundwork for a successful program, she noted that while scaling depends on a variety of factors, it’s critical to establish success metrics early so you can quantify the program’s impact for leadership.

3) Framing as a quality improvement initiative

“Making this a quality improvement project to align with hospital initiatives got the attention of the top administrators,” Fox said.

Fox told conference attendees that her team started the program by identifying the highest-risk patients coming into Stanford’s service lines.

The program evolved to focus on identifying, diagnosing and managing treatment as part of long-term chronic disease management, which is an important mindset to adopt, Fox said.

“We started with none of our trauma orthopedic hip fracture patients being referred for follow-up care, and now 86% of patients with hip fractures are referred to my program within six months,” Fox noted.

“These patients are so grateful for the care that they’re receiving and that there’s a program in place like this –they can’t believe it. They’re 82 years old coming in and they say, ‘No one has ever talked to me about my bones before.’”

To learn more about how health systems are working to improve post-fracture care programs, listen to our new podcast episode sponsored by Amgen featuring Andrea Singer and Andrea Fox.

* Data are from an anonymized patient claims dataset from IQVIA for women over age 50 diagnosed with or treated for osteoporosis, had a fragility fracture, or with at least one medical or pharmacy claim between January 2019 – December 2023. Fractures were counted if there was a diagnosis or procedure code for a fragility fracture of the hip, vertebra, femur, pelvis, humerus, radius/ulna, tibia/fibula, or clavicle. For patients with at least one fragility fracture between January 2019–December 2022, claims records were examined for post-fracture care, including the number of patients with a diagnosis code, DXA scan code, or a prescription for an osteoporosis treatment.

1 Data on file, Amgen, 2024.

2 Singer A, et al. Mayo Clin Proc. 2015; 90:53-62.

3 Cosman F, et al. Osteoporos Int. 2014; 25(10):2359-81.

4 Inacio MCS, et al. TPJ. 2015; 19(3):29-36.

5 Data on file, Amgen, 2024.

6 Bennett MJ, Center JR, Perry L. Exploring barriers and opportunities to improve osteoporosis care across the acute-to-primary care interface: a qualitative study. Osteoporos Int. 2023 Jul;34(7):1249-1262.
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