David Ottati, President & CEO, AdventHealth West Florida Division

August 2026 —Invest: spoke with David Ottati, president and CEO of AdventHealth West Florida Division, about how rapid regional growth is shaping investments in access, specialty care, workforce, and technology across West Florida. “Most people don’t want to spend time in their hospitals. They want to be healthy,” Ottati said.

What changes over the past year impacted AdventHealth in West Florida, and in what ways?

We’ve had significant growth and change over the past year, and it’s showing up in both inpatient and ambulatory investments. A visible example is our continued expansion in Wesley Chapel, where we added three new floors to increase capabilities as that campus continues to grow.

We’ve also grown heavily in our medical group across our footprint, which has required adding medical offices in areas like Zephyrhills. Tampa is in a growth mode at AdventHealth, too. We have a 100,000-square-foot medical plaza under development with cancer center capabilities, another project in Zephyrhills that’s about to open, and we’ve done work in Dade City.

A major driver for those investments is access. We believe access is incredibly important for our patients, and many people in the community are having a hard time getting to physicians and other ambulatory settings, so we’re investing heavily in that.

On the inpatient side, we’ve taken on major integration work alongside growth. We acquired a hospital in Port Charlotte, which required tremendous effort to integrate into AdventHealth clinical and operational systems. We also brought in Bond Clinic, adding roughly 80 providers, which further strengthens our physician presence in the region.

We’ve continued to build on the momentum at AdventHealth Riverview as well. When we spoke last year, we had just opened that facility. Since then, we’ve already started an addition. About eight or nine months later, we made a decision to add close to 70 more beds and additional clinical capabilities, and that’s under construction now. That’s a reflection of the demand we’re seeing and the growth we’re planning for.

What do these investments say about the region’s healthcare needs and your planning model?

Tampa is growing rapidly, and it’s a diverse growth, from families with children through retirees. Because of that, we have to develop a comprehensive network across the continuum of care.

For us, that means it can’t be limited to a single central location. We operate with a distributed model that allows us to grow in multiple geographies, from Dade City to Zephyrhills to downtown Tampa and into South Hillsborough. We’re investing geographically across the community, and we’re also investing in a range of capabilities, from ambulatory and physician access to inpatient services and high-end specialties such as neurosurgery and open heart.

Community engagement is another part of how we plan and scale. We work with several partners, including the Buccaneers, and we’ve expanded our engagement with the Lightning. Through the Patch with a Purpose initiative, the AdventHealth patch ties to funding for community not-for-profit entities that support the underinsured. Those partnerships help amplify our local impact beyond our facilities.

As competition for clinicians intensifies, how do you approach workforce development right now, including partnerships with educational institutions?

Workforce development is central because our West Florida division has more than 20,000 team members today, and we’re continuing to grow. That means we’re building multiple pipelines and also investing in the people who already work here.

On the physician side, we’re expanding graduate medical education and growing to more than 400 residents by 2030, supported across four hospitals. We’ve secured residencies in areas such as cardiology, critical care, neurology, emergency medicine, family practice, internal medicine, and gastroenterology to strengthen the pipeline our community needs.

For nursing and other clinical roles, we’re partnering with more than 20 nursing schools, including Polk State College and AdventHealth University in Tampa. Through these relationships, students get hands-on experience in simulation labs and on units, learn our systems, and build competencies inside our facilities before they graduate. We hire hundreds of new nurses each year, and those numbers shift based on what projects and hospitals we’re opening.

We’re also looking earlier in the pipeline. In Pasco County, we’re working with local partners on ways to help students graduate high school with practical skills already developed, such as patient care technician training or EMT preparation.

In addition, we’re investing heavily in our current team members through stipends and financial support for certifications, additional training, and clinical ladder programs. We’re investing millions of dollars in these pathways, with thousands of employees participating. It helps our team members advance, supports retention, and strengthens our ability to meet workforce needs over time.

What trends are most shaping your strategy in Tampa Bay right now, and how are you responding?

Workforce remains a defining trend, but another major one is digital and AI-enabled care. AdventHealth has rapidly adopted AI and advanced analytics, and it’s reshaped workflow and helped us make better operational decisions.

Across the organization, we have more than 45 AI systems embedded today. One major area of investment is smart room technology, which we’re deploying across hospitals in our West Florida division. Smart rooms include digital screens and camera capabilities that support care visits and enable family members to participate even if they are not physically present. We’re also embedding technology to help prevent falls for patients at higher risk. The goal is stronger communication, safer care, and improved outcomes. By the end of 2026, every room in our West Florida division, and across the company, will become a smart room.

Resiliency and climate risk are becoming operational tests for healthcare systems. How are you strengthening readiness across facilities?

Resiliency matters because healthcare faces constant operational challenges, and we have to be prepared when conditions change. We’ve been through hurricane seasons in prior years, and while we did not have any hurricanes this year, we still treat readiness as an ongoing discipline.

One of the biggest factors in resiliency is leadership. When challenges hit, leadership is at the forefront, so we focus on making sure leaders are engaged, trained, supported, and connected as an organization. We’ve invested heavily in leadership development, including a leadership development institute that supports training from new nurse managers through senior leaders. That investment strengthens our ability to respond, maintain continuity, and stay aligned under stress.

What are your key goals and priorities for the next two to three years?

We are a faith-based, consumer-focused clinical company that delivers whole-person care, and we want to be long-term stewards of the work we do. We have a Vision 2030 plan that guides decisions across the organization, and it’s operationalized through six focus areas.

First is the consumer experience: whether we are easy to interact with, from our apps through the in-person experience across emergency care, imaging, outpatient therapy, and other settings.

Second is our team members: engagement, development, and retention, supported by continued investment in leadership and workforce pathways.

Third is clinical excellence. We measure outcomes across service lines and benchmark through indicators such as Leapfrog measures and CMS star ratings, striving to improve through sustained investment.

Fourth is our connected network, including care settings beyond inpatient hospitals so patients can access services across different points of care.

Fifth is financial strength. As a not-for-profit, everything we make is invested back into the community, from facility expansion to support for organizations that serve underserved populations.

Sixth is population health. We want to help make this a healthier community overall. Most people don’t want to spend time in their hospitals. They want to be healthy. Hospitals are essential when people need them, but we also want to do everything we can to keep people healthy and, when possible, out of the hospital. That focus on stewardship and accountability shows up in the measures we track, the outcomes we pursue, and the investments we make.