Paul Coyne, DNP, APRN, senior vice president and chief nurse executive of New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery, joined Becker’s to discuss the healthcare trends he is worried about and the health system’s growth strategy for the next year.
Editor’s note: These responses were edited lightly for clarity and length.
Question: What healthcare trend are you the most concerned about in 2024?
Paul Coyne: I think it’s the pace at which we’re expecting technology to solve all of the problems of the industry. The blind optimism to things like artificial intelligence is concerning because what happens is people don’t pay attention to what they can improve today. They sort of kick the solution so far away that you don’t realize the impact they can have now. And while everyone’s excited for these tools to arrive, I’m most concerned that we’ll lose the opportunity to make 2024 better while we’re waiting for a future to come.
There’s a disconnect right now I think between industry and the front-line clinicians that are caring for patients. In one room of every hospital in America right now, there’s a physician or a nurse taking care of a patient with the tools that they have and trying their best to do it. In another room, there are people talking to industry and vendors and brainstorming ways to improve care efficiency through the use of technology and the implementation of new
software and artificial intelligence. But those are two separate rooms. And so in 2024, if there’s not a realization that they can merge rooms and work together, they will become more separate. We need to use the technology to bring the rooms back together, not use technology to keep the rooms separate.
Technology in most industries has the simultaneous ability for growth and to alleviate that burden for the person performing the tasks. But in healthcare, the tool isn’t getting in the hand of the person who’s actually taking care of the patient. And so in all of this, as the expectation and demand grows for labor, there’s no technology presented to alleviate the increased demand on labor, and as a result, clinical care actually doesn’t stay the same and it will get worse.
Q: What’s your growth strategy in the next year?
PC: HSS is the world’s leading musculoskeletal health system. Number one in orthopedics, according to the U.S. News & World Report. Our strategy is to continue to deliver highest-quality musculoskeletal care to as many patients as possible. And historically, we’ve been a hospital in New York City, but in the last five to 10 years, we’ve expanded to New Jersey and Connecticut with over 20 regional access points. We have ASCs and are in the process of opening another one. To sum it up, our growth strategy is to deliver the world’s best musculoskeletal care to as many patients as possible.
We haven’t acquired anything, we haven’t merged with other entities, we’re not just putting our name on things. We are very methodical and deliberate growing at the appropriate speed by which care remains the highest quality. Additionally, the market is shifting to ambulatory surgery as opposed to inpatient surgery. Patients want us to go home quicker, and they want to have surgery closer to home with the same outcomes. We are continuing to grow our ASC footprint to meet the needs of our patients closer to their home and in a setting that is appropriate for their level of care.
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