Medical City Heart Hospital and Medical City Spine Hospital are specialty hospitals located on the Medical City Dallas campus in Texas. Part of Medical City Healthcare, a regional system operated by HCA Healthcare, the facilities serve as referral centres for patients requiring complex procedures, advanced interventions and specialised inpatient treatment from across North Texas and neighbouring states.
Medical City Heart Hospital recently completed a major expansion and invested heavily in advanced operating rooms and hybrid procedure spaces. How is the design of the modern hospital changing to support more complex, technology-driven care?
The modern hospital is really about getting the right technology in the right places for the right people. HCA Healthcare has many hospitals, and Medical City Healthcare is uniquely positioned, having both a heart hospital and a spine hospital. For us, it's about the specialty care model and having teams focused on highly complex care.
When people are delivering that specialized care consistently, you see the benefits in quality outcomes. The combination of specialized teams and targeted technology allow us to continue expanding what we're able to do for patients.
What advantages do specialty hospitals have when it comes to delivering complex care?
Having specially trained teams is the biggest advantage. Our physicians, ICU teams, nurses and support staff are entirely focused on heart and spine patients. Even environmental services and nutrition teams understand the unique needs of these populations, particularly transplant and immunocompromised patients.
Some of our spine surgeons tell us they come here specifically for their most complex cases because they know the operating room and ICU teams understand that level of care. This focus helps improve quality and gives patients confidence they're receiving highly specialized treatment.
As demand for high-acuity care grows, what operational pressures come with scaling these programmes while maintaining quality and consistency?
As a specialty hospital grows, it becomes the destination for the sickest patients. The biggest focus is workforce development, finding nurses, technicians, and specialists who can perform work that often can't be done elsewhere. As we expand, we must continue investing in education, training and support to maintain our standards.
We want to be the best place for heart care, but also the place that can care for the sickest patients, requiring highly trained teams throughout the organization.
Workforce shortages and clinician burnout remain major issues across healthcare. How do you approach recruitment and retention?
Retention starts with culture. We focus on being present, listening and creating an environment where nurses, clinicians and colleagues at all levels feel supported and can grow in their careers.
We have highly engaged physicians and teams working towards the same goals. As a nurse, I've always believed in listening, being compassionate and understanding what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. I try to bring that same approach to leadership, and I think that's one of the reasons people want to stay here.
The Heart and Spine Hospitals have become destination facilities. What kinds of patients are travelling to you, and what differentiates the care you provide?
Our cardiogenic shock program is the best example. We send teams out by helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft to retrieve critically ill patients from out of state or just a few miles away. These are the "sickest of the sick," arriving on maximum life support. We receive one to two patients a day from New Mexico, Louisiana and across the region as the destination site for that higher level of care.
We also sit across the street from our division’s flagship hospital, Medical City Dallas. We assist with their bone marrow or liver transplant patients who have massive comorbidities, by bringing them over for ECMO to support them along their journey. Patient outcomes are significantly better because we can provide that highly specific, structural support.
What innovations are having the biggest impact on patient outcomes right now?
Some of the biggest advancements are temporary heart support technology and newer customized spine implants. Temporary ventricular assist devices, implanted through the axillary artery that gives the heart a rest, serve as a game changer for survival. In the past, about 50% of patients with severe cardiac injury might not have made it out of the hospital; now, the vast majority leave the hospital because this device allows recovery. Because it is implanted via the axillary artery, patients can wake up and walk the halls, remaining on it for six weeks or more while waiting for a transplant. At the end of the day, our goal is saving lives and making sure that this mom or dad or brother or sister goes home.
On the spine side, newer technology allows implants to be customized to a patient's anatomy, reducing surgery times and speeding recovery. It really is the tale of two hospitals. On the cardiac side, we handle highly complex emergency transfers, while on the spine side nearly all work is elective, allowing us to plan ahead. We are currently publishing outcomes data with a large patient sample, and we're seeing strong evidence that what we're doing makes a real difference.
AI has become a major focus across healthcare. Where are you seeing it make the biggest impact, and what will define a successful specialty hospital in the years ahead?
AI is already proving valuable, but it should be an adjunct, not a crutch. We use an AI-enabled clinical alert platform—which started in neuro—and adapt it to help find pulmonary embolisms in our most critical patients so we can quickly deploy protocols and remove the clot.
Looking ahead, successful specialty hospitals will combine technology, efficiency, culture and measurable quality outcomes. We currently have a waiting list of nurses who want to work in our ICU because of the environment we've built. When I think about success, I want the best team, the best physicians, and the best outcomes. It's all of those things coming together that make the difference.
