Spotlight On: Stephanie Conners, CEO & President, BayCare Health System

Key points:

• • BayCare is expanding its academic mission and services, including proton therapy, behavioral health access, and virtual hospital care.
• • The system is investing heavily in workforce development, residency programs, and employee well-being to address growing demand.
• • A $2.9B growth plan aims to expand capacity and strengthen access across West Central Florida’s healthcare ecosystem.

March 2026 — Invest: spoke with Stephanie Conners, CEO and president of BayCare Health System, about the system’s evolution into the region’s largest academic health system and its people-first strategy. As BayCare deploys $2.9 billion in growth capital and expands services from proton therapy to virtual hospital care, Conners is clear that the strategy starts with the workforce. “Our people are our greatest asset, and we need to ensure that we continue to invest in them, because if we invest in our people, then the care that’s delivered is truly extraordinary,” Conners said.

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Over the past year, what major changes have most impacted BayCare, and in what ways?

BayCare has been very busy. We have solidified our position as the largest academic health system in West Central Florida, driven by a clear obligation to care for patients from their first breath to their last and to close gaps in access as healthcare becomes more complex. Our new partnership with Northwestern Medicine will accelerate our academic mission and our journey toward delivering the world-class care we believe this community deserves, supporting research, education, and clinical trials while elevating the level of care available close to home.

We also celebrated the arrival of the region’s first proton therapy accelerator, featuring the latest technology. No one in West Central Florida currently has access to proton therapy, and while others are exploring it, BayCare made the decision to embark on this major investment so that our patients have access to advanced cancer treatments when the accelerator goes live in spring 2026. 

Another key focus has been behavioral health. We have long been the region’s largest provider of behavioral health services because we see mental health as essential to total health, and we recently opened the first urgent care for behavioral health in Pasco County to meet people where they are. 

Finally, our commitment to safety, service, quality and cost has produced the best performance year in our 28-year history. The majority of our eligible hospitals hold Leapfrog “A” safety ratings, and we take great pride in being known for clinical excellence and high reliability.

How is BayCare attracting and developing talent, especially nurses and clinical staff, in such a competitive labor environment?

This topic is so important because our success starts and ends with our people. Our team members are our greatest asset and the heartbeat of our organization, so everything we do is built around them. I lead a team of roughly 34,000 individuals, and we are very intentional about giving every person the runway to be the best version of themselves, because when our people can work to their maximum potential, the organization achieves its maximum potential.

We invest heavily in well-being, not just for nurses but for all team members. Our vision is to be the best place to work, practice and receive care, and the many external accolades we receive as a best place to work are meaningful because they come from our people and reflect how our culture supports their ability to plan, grow and thrive here.

Tying back to our academic mission, we are also making ambitious investments in physician and clinical training. Patients come for physicians and stay for extraordinary care, so we are focused on both. We are among the fastest-growing residency programs in the country and expect to train more than 650 residents by 2029, with the clear intention of retaining as many as possible to meet the region’s future healthcare needs. We are proactively addressing physician competition by being the best place to practice and by prioritizing physician and advanced practice provider well-being. Strong physician leadership across the organization helps align our workforce strategies with the services our communities need and sustains a resilient culture in a complex environment.

What broader trends, such as behavioral health demand, value-based care, and telehealth, do you see as most influential, and how are you navigating them?

We look at care through the lens of the right place, right time, and right provider. On one end of the spectrum, our academic mission requires us to care for the sickest of the sick, manage advanced disease processes and provide the medical talent and infrastructure to support that level of care. Equally important is the care we deliver outside the hospital.

We are building a continuum that spans from quaternary care to outpatient and home-based medicine, supported by remote patient monitoring, advanced analytics and virtual interactions. We have already stood up a virtual hospital model that allows appropriate patients to remain in their homes, close to loved ones, where they can heal mentally as well as physically, while still receiving hospital-level care.

Our mission is to improve the health of all we serve, and the only way to live that mission is to provide the access our communities need. The work we are doing is not about gaining a competitive edge; it is an obligation. Many individuals and communities will never seek care in a hospital, so we need to bring care to them, where and when they need it, if we truly want healthier communities.

What are the biggest challenges BayCare is navigating today?

The changing climate in healthcare is at the core of many of our challenges. Clinically, our first priority is making sure access is available. Demand for physicians and other clinicians continues to rise, particularly in a growing state like Florida, which is why training the physicians of the future is so important. We must have talented individuals prepared to care for expanding and aging populations while navigating pressures from rising costs, insurance dynamics and workforce shortages. Even as we earn accolades as a great place to work and practice, we cannot relax our efforts to sustain that reality, because the well-being of our communities depends on the well-being of our people.

Capacity constraints across our facilities are another major factor, and we are committing about $2.9 billion in growth to close gaps in care. Those investments span the continuum and are designed to ensure that from first breath to last breath, people can access the services they need while we maintain fiscal strength. Market competition is intense, and there are many new entrants across our communities. We believe healthcare leaders have to grow in ways that are smart and grounded in community needs. BayCare contributes close to $500 million a year in community benefit programs, and we regularly conduct community health needs assessments to keep our efforts aligned with evolving priorities.

As the region continues to evolve, how are your strategic priorities evolving with it? What are your top goals for the next two to three years?

Our top priority, always, is our people, and that will be my answer 10 times out of 10. Our people are our greatest asset, and we need to ensure that we continue to invest in them, because if we invest in our people, then the care that’s delivered is truly extraordinary. When we get that right, we can deliver extraordinary care while managing smart, sustainable growth.

Strategically, we are aligning our financial planning with our growth agenda so that BayCare is as stable, or even more stable, in the future as it is today. Our pledge to invest $2.9 billion through 2030 to expand services is central to fulfilling our mission to improve the health of all we serve and to support a stable healthcare ecosystem as demand increases. We have also embarked on what we call BayCare 2.0, reflecting our status as a solely community-owned, independent health system. That structure gives us the freedom to think big, close gaps and innovate in ways that go beyond bricks and mortar.

Our 34,000 team members deliver care and live, work and play in the communities we serve. Being the largest health system in West Central Florida comes with a profound obligation: to support them as members of the BayCare family while they support our patients. Looking ahead, our focus is on aligning every effort around delivering highly compassionate care, grounded in clinical excellence. That will remain our North Star as the region and the healthcare landscape continue to evolve.

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