4 min read December 2023 — Kenneth Jones, CEO of HCA Florida Northwest Hospital, spoke with Invest: about the challenges across the healthcare sector, new service offerings, and more. “Looking two to three years out, we have great fundamentals in our economic landscape as far as population, population growth, inflationary pressures in South Florida, and more,” he said.
What growth has HCA Florida Northwest Hospital experienced in the past year?
I have served as CEO since March 2021 at the height of the pandemic. Our big focus during this time has been on our workforce development, leadership development and the overall stabilization of our workforce. From a growth standpoint, we are located in Margate, which is geographically connected to many locations experiencing population growth. As such, we have seen heightened demand for services, including women’s healthcare, specifically in obstetrics and gynecology. We recently launched our obstetrics and gynecology residency program. This, and our hospitalists and in-house medicinal services, have allowed us to treat a high-risk patient population. We house the only Level 3 NICU in Northern Broward County, which treats the highest acuity of newborns delivered in our community. Our cardiovascular thoracic line is also a top priority, and we have expanded our services and physician pool. Additionally, adding complex neurosurgery and 24/7 surgery coverage has been essential to us. In 2022, we added a neurology residency program to support this endeavor.
How has workforce development been made a priority?
I am very excited about our workforce development agenda. In 2020, we purchased Galen College of Nursing so we can develop and create opportunities and experiences for nurses in our local communities. This means we can recruit them directly and incentivize current staff to grow their careers and choose the nursing continuum. HCA is the largest producer of medical education graduates in the United States and has relationships with various allied health professionals. There are tremendous community needs for each service we provide, so being able to recruit and train physicians who train in our different systems to work in our hospitals makes a big difference.
What opportunities exist for HCA Florida Northwest Hospital looking ahead?
In 2022, we added MD Now Urgent Care to our portfolio to provide for patients experiencing urgent care and who may need to follow up with one of our specialists. Adding urgent care to our offering means we implement care pathways to ensure patients with certain conditions are connected more seamlessly with their next steps.
Staffing and inflationary pressures remain a challenge. We will continue to use our scale across our various footprints and improve our efficiencies to manage wait times and the overall patient experience. It goes back to the likelihood of recommending Northwest to receive healthcare. These will remain top priorities because we are a business of people taking care of people. People with the right attitudes and a focus on the overall experience and workforce engagement is essential.
How has technology evolved the way healthcare is provided, and how are you harnessing this?
Here at Northwest and across our various locations, we want to offer the latest and greatest technology that allows us to treat patients more effectively than previously. Having residents in our organization and surgical subspecialties, we want to treat our current patients and train them in that technology. To attract high-quality physicians interested in high medical outcomes, they need to have the technological capabilities to support their practice. We typically connect with our medical staff leaders on our capital plan related to what is in our pipeline. One of HCA’s strengths is providing capital to their facilities in a way that allows us to expand our reach.
How do you balance quality, accessibility, and affordability of care?
Our structures take a balanced approach to our performance from a hospital standpoint, which ties back to our overall medical staff and leader goals. From a quality of care standpoint, it is about reducing harm and focusing on safety in the organization. From a growth standpoint, it is about surgical procedures and certain conditions that our community needs addressed and be serviced by our organization. As we look at new and current service lines, we want to ensure we are effective. One of the benefits of being in a system that offers services across the continuum is that we can focus on specific procedures and technologies that benefit local patients. As a system, we can provide services to the entire community. Everyone does not have to offer every service; certain facilities focus more on women’s health while others focus more on cardiovascular health. This allows us to use our resources more effectively to drive better access. Having a system that uses data to identify trends and analytics to show performance in real time related to patient experience, quality results, or efficiency results means we have a lot of tools to manage overpopulation better and identify opportunities for improvement.
What is your outlook for the hospital and Broward County’s healthcare landscape?
Two to three years out, we have great fundamentals in our economic landscape as far as population growth, inflationary pressures in South Florida, and more. We know that healthcare services are needed, and it is our role to ensure we provide the right services based on our community’s needs. We will continue to focus on our workforce, culture, and relationships with local schools and use technology to make better decisions.
The hospital will turn 40 in 2024, which is a great accomplishment. If you look at our hospital’s history from 1984 through 2024, you will see growth in both our people and programs. That will continue to be our future at Northwest. We operate under the HCA Florida brand to connect our facilities under that common infrastructure.
For more information, visit:
https://www.hcafloridahealthcare.com/locations/northwest-hospital
