Verified
HCA Healthcare
Experimenting- Hospitals
- ~320,000 employees
- 755-person digital and AI team
- Timpani at 130+ hospitals
- Google Cloud and OpenAI
HCA Healthcare deploys AI through Digital Transformation and Innovation, a 755-person physician-led department that builds tools with clinicians, such as Timpani nurse scheduling at more than 130 hospitals and a Nurse Handoff tool built on Google's Gemini model. HCA Healthcare also buys AI: Commure's ambient notes ran in about 67 hospitals in May 2026, and OpenAI named HCA Healthcare in Jan 2026 among the health systems rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare. HCA Healthcare has published no dollar return from AI.
hcahealthcare.comTheir approach to AI
- The platform
- HCA Healthcare builds its own AI products, such as Timpani and Nurse Handoff, in a physician-led Digital Transformation and Innovation department, and buys others, such as Commure's ambient documentation, GE HealthCare's perinatal platform and OpenAI's ChatGPT for Healthcare.
- The models
- Nurse Handoff runs on Google's Gemini model on Google Cloud, HCA Healthcare is building care orchestration agents with OpenAI, and ambient notes come from Commure (May 2026).
- The reach
- Timpani AI scheduling ran at more than 130 HCA Healthcare hospitals and 1,200 nursing departments in Jun 2026, and Commure's ambient notes ran at about 67 hospitals, some 200,000 notes a month, in May 2026.
- The catch
- HCA Healthcare has not said how many of its roughly 320,000 employees use ChatGPT for Healthcare or any general AI assistant, reports no dollar return from AI, and CFO Mike Marks said in Mar 2026 that the work is still in the early innings.
Snapshot
- Employees
- ~320,000
- Dec 31, 2025; 190 hospitals in 19 states and England
- Technology budget
- Not disclosedest.
- About half of the $5B to $5.5B 2026 capital budget is routine or technology spending, Expanse and AI included (Mar 2026)
- AI/ML headcount
- 755 in DT&I
- Jun 2026; the Information Technology Group had about 8,000 staff in Feb 2026
- Who owns AI
- Michael Schlosser
- EVP and Chief Clinical Officer since Sep 1, 2026; still leads Digital Transformation and Innovation; reports to CEO Sam Hazen
- Platform
- Hybrid
- Timpani and Nurse Handoff built in-house; ambient notes from Commure; ChatGPT for Healthcare from OpenAI
- Models
- Google Gemini, OpenAI, Commure
- Gemini behind Nurse Handoff (May 2026); OpenAI's ChatGPT for Healthcare (Jan 2026); vendor models in bought products
- Reach
- Timpani at 130+ hospitals
- Jun 2026; Commure ambient notes at about 67 hospitals (May 2026)
- Use cases
- Six flagship initiatives
- Named in Michael Schlosser's Jun 2026 paper, plus AI in revenue cycle denials and case management
Key findings
HCA Healthcare runs AI through Digital Transformation and Innovation, a physician-led department of 755 people that reported directly to the CEO in Jun 2026, led by Michael Schlosser, who became Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer on Sep 1, 2026 while keeping the department; HCA Healthcare said in Aug 2026 that a search for his successor as chief transformation officer was under way.
Timpani, the AI staffing and scheduling platform HCA Healthcare built, ran at more than 130 hospitals and 1,200 nursing departments in Jun 2026, and Michael Schlosser put Commure's ambient documentation at about 67 hospitals and 200,000 notes a month in May 2026, with about 105 hospitals targeted by the end of 2026.
HCA Healthcare's Nurse Handoff tool, built with Google around its Gemini model, moved from an eight-hospital beta to a 12-hospital beta by May 2026, where Michael Schlosser reported an 80% drop in handoff-related safety event reports, with a wider rollout planned from mid-2026.
OpenAI listed HCA Healthcare on Jan 8, 2026 among the health systems rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare, and Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that HCA Healthcare and OpenAI are building AI agents to orchestrate hospital care, with a pilot possible later in 2026.
HCA Healthcare has published no dollar return from AI: its $400 million 2026 resiliency savings target names AI and automation as one of three capabilities without breaking them out, and Sam Hazen said in Sep 2026 that HCA Healthcare is still a net investor in its AI agenda.
Where HCA sits
- Stage
- Experimenting
HCA Healthcare has reported no business return it credits to AI, for any use case or for the firm. The $400 million of 2026 savings in its guidance is a target for a resiliency program that names digital transformation with AI and automation as one of three capabilities, beside benchmarking and shared services, and CFO Mike Marks did not say how much comes from AI when an analyst asked in Jan 2026. The gains HCA Healthcare does report carry no cost figure: Timpani cut nurse scheduling time and its departments reported 6% lower turnover (Jun 2026), ambient documentation saves physicians time, and Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that supply chain AI carries a good financial return without giving one. HCA Healthcare has not reported a company-wide AI rollout with a user count either: it counts its AI tools by hospital, with Timpani at more than 130 and Commure's ambient notes at about 67, and has not said how many of its roughly 320,000 employees use ChatGPT for Healthcare, which OpenAI listed it as rolling out in Jan 2026. HCA Healthcare is therefore at Experimenting; one return it credits to AI, or a reported count of employees using its AI tools under Michael Schlosser, would move it to Piloting.
How the stages are defined - Ownership
- Michael Schlosser, EVP and Chief Clinical Officer, reporting to the CEO
- Platform
- Hybrid: Timpani and Nurse Handoff built in-house; ambient AI from Commure; ChatGPT for Healthcare from OpenAI
- Models
- Google Gemini in Nurse Handoff; OpenAI; Commure and GE HealthCare products
- Hosting
- Google Cloud for Nurse Handoff and the data lakehouse; AWS for GE HealthCare's CareIntellect; OpenAI and Commure services; Expanse EHR in the cloud, on Google Cloud in the UK
- Reach
- Timpani at 130+ hospitals (Jun 2026); ambient notes at about 67 hospitals (May 2026)
How they deploy
Clinician-led products, built and bought
HCA Healthcare set up a Care Transformation and Innovation department in 2021 that worked with Google, Palantir, GE HealthCare and Augmedix, now part of Commure, and tested ideas in innovation hubs inside its hospitals. HCA Healthcare created Digital Transformation and Innovation from that team in 2024 and grew it to 755 clinicians, data scientists, AI engineers, analysts, developers, educators and change managers by Jun 2026. HCA Healthcare builds products such as Timpani and Nurse Handoff itself, buys ambient documentation from Commure, an EHR-agnostic platform the two companies co-developed under an Oct 2024 agreement and in which HCA Healthcare holds a small investment, and was rolling out OpenAI's ChatGPT for Healthcare by Jan 2026.
Three domains on different clocks
Sam Hazen said in Jan 2026 that HCA Healthcare is all in on the possibilities of AI, organized in three domains: administrative work such as revenue cycle and supply chain, operational work such as staffing and scheduling, and clinical support for physicians and nurses. Mike Marks put most administrative activity in the next two to four years and operational gains at three to six, with clinical AI slowest because of its risk and the full weight of the digital products taking five to ten years (Mar 2026). Hazen called clinical AI the holy grail of HCA Healthcare's AI agenda in Jan and Sep 2026.
A portfolio reviewed every quarter
Michael Schlosser wrote in Jun 2026 that HCA Healthcare runs AI as a portfolio of domains, such as AI Enablement, Care Team Optimization, Clinical AI, Clinical Documentation Transformation and Supply Chain, each led by domain leaders and product teams, with resources shifted through a Quarterly Business Review. Schlosser named six flagship initiatives: nurse handoffs, Timpani scheduling, ambient documentation, maternal-fetal care, inventory management and hospital throughput. Schlosser said in May 2026 that HCA Healthcare tracks clinical, operational and financial outcomes for each use case and justifies some, such as Nurse Handoff, on patient safety.
Standard data before scaled AI
HCA Healthcare is replacing its MEDITECH Magic EHR with the cloud-based MEDITECH Expanse in every hospital by the end of 2028, which Mike Marks called the biggest project in the company's history and part of the data foundation AI rests on (Mar 2026). Sam Hazen said in Jan 2026 that Expanse will let HCA Healthcare standardize data sets across its hospitals, which had about 47 million patient encounters in 2025, and Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that HCA Healthcare built a data lakehouse on Google Cloud that manages data as a product for AI models and analysts.
AI as a lever for cost resiliency
HCA Healthcare counts digital transformation with AI and automation as one of three capabilities behind its resiliency program, alongside benchmarking and shared services, and set a $400 million savings target for 2026 (Jan 2026). Mike Marks said in Sep 2026 that the next phase from 2027, which he called financial resiliency 2.0, will be driven even more by digital transformation, AI and automation, and that HCA Healthcare is behind payers in using AI on claims.
- Deployment model
- HCA Healthcare runs AI from a central Digital Transformation and Innovation department (DT&I) that designs products with clinicians, pilots them in innovation hub hospitals and scales the ones that work, sometimes over several years (Jon Foster, Mar 2026). HCA Healthcare's hubs are UCF Lake Nona Hospital, TriStar Hendersonville Medical Center and HCA Florida Aventura Hospital, the third launched by May 2026, where engineers and data scientists work in clinical settings. DT&I works with the Information Technology Group under CIO Chad Wasserman, about 8,000 people covering infrastructure, cloud, data engineering, automation and cybersecurity (Feb 2026), and with Parallon, HCA Healthcare's revenue cycle and administrative platform. Mike Marks said in Nov 2025 that HCA Healthcare must be as good at implementation and change management as at building AI tools. HCA Healthcare said in Nov 2023 it would build a global capability center in India, starting with IT in 2024, and Sam Hazen said in Sep 2026 that the center will start to create value in 2027 and 2028.
- Model providers
- HCA Healthcare built Nurse Handoff with Google Research around Google's Gemini model on Google Cloud (Michael Schlosser, May 2026), using retrieval-augmented generation that cites the EHR source for each statement (Jul 2025); HCA Healthcare said in Aug 2023 it was also exploring Google's Med-PaLM 2. OpenAI named HCA Healthcare in Jan 2026 among the health systems rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare, which OpenAI says runs GPT-5 models under a business associate agreement, and Schlosser said in May 2026 that HCA Healthcare is a few months into a strategic partnership with OpenAI to build care orchestration agents. Ambient documentation comes from Commure, whose Augmedix platform used Google Cloud's generative AI in HCA Healthcare's 2023 emergency department pilot. CareIntellect for Perinatal comes from GE HealthCare, and HCA Healthcare's 2025 Form 10-K says the company deploys third-party AI software and in some cases builds its own. HCA Healthcare has not said which models Commure uses for its notes.
- Data and infrastructure
- HCA Healthcare signed a multi-year Google Cloud partnership in May 2021 to build a data analytics platform on the Google Cloud Healthcare API and BigQuery, with patient data access governed through Google's infrastructure and HCA Healthcare's own security controls, and Michael Schlosser described a data lakehouse on Google Cloud in May 2026. Nurse Handoff runs in a secure Google Cloud environment, and GE HealthCare runs CareIntellect for Perinatal on Amazon Web Services (Oct 2025). HCA Healthcare's EHR move to the cloud-based MEDITECH Expanse reached 50 acute-care facilities in Jan 2026 and 72 hospitals in the U.S. and UK by Aug 2026, and HCA Healthcare UK's Expanse instance is hosted on Google Cloud Platform through MEDITECH UK (Dec 2025). HCA Healthcare has not published where its U.S. Expanse instances, Commure's ambient service or ChatGPT for Healthcare run, or whether it runs any AI models in its own data centers.
Platforms and internal tools
TimpaniBy 2025
Timpani is the nurse staffing and scheduling platform HCA Healthcare's Digital Transformation and Innovation department developed; it matches nursing skills and preferred schedules with projected patient census, so that more than 98% of shifts mix experience levels. Timpani cut scheduling time from 8 to 15 hours a month to 2 to 3 hours per cycle, and departments using it reported a 6% decline in turnover and less contract labor (Jun 2026). The 2026 proxy statement said Timpani expanded to 76 facilities in 2025, while Mike Marks put the AI scheduling tool at just short of 100 hospitals in Nov 2025.
- Users
- 130+ hospitals and 1,200+ nursing departments (Jun 2026)
Nurse HandoffWork began early 2024
Nurse Handoff is a generative AI tool HCA Healthcare built with Google that drafts shift-change summaries from EHR data on hospital-provided mobile devices, where the outgoing and incoming nurses review and edit them together. Nurses rated the summaries 86% factual and 90% helpful at one pilot hospital (Jul 2025) and 97% accurate and 95% helpful in an eight-hospital beta (Jun 2026 paper). Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that the beta had grown to 12 hospitals, where handoff-related safety event reports fell 80%, and that a wider rollout would start in mid-2026. Handoffs happen about 68,000 times a day across HCA Healthcare facilities (2026 Impact Report).
- Users
- Beta at 12 hospitals (May 2026)
- Models
- Google Gemini
Ambient Clinical DocumentationED pilot early 2023; Commure partnership Oct 2024
Ambient Clinical Documentation is Commure's ambient speech tool, co-developed with HCA Healthcare, which listens to physician and patient conversations with the patient's consent and drafts a note that the physician reviews, edits and signs. HCA Healthcare had the tool in 20 inpatient facilities, nine emergency departments and with more than 400 ambulatory providers at the end of 2025, was testing it with more than 1,400 physicians across more than 50 hospitals in Apr 2026, and ran it at about 67 hospitals in May 2026, with about 105 targeted by the end of 2026.
- Users
- About 67 hospitals and 200,000 notes a month (May 2026)
- Models
- Commure ambient AI
ChatGPT for HealthcareRolling out by Jan 2026
ChatGPT for Healthcare is OpenAI's workspace for health systems, which OpenAI says runs GPT-5 models under a business associate agreement and does not use customer content for training. OpenAI listed HCA Healthcare on Jan 8, 2026 among the institutions rolling it out; HCA Healthcare has not said which staff have access or how many use it.
- Models
- OpenAI GPT-5 models
CareIntellect for PerinatalOct 2025
CareIntellect for Perinatal is a cloud application GE HealthCare launched on Oct 14, 2025, developed in collaboration with HCA Healthcare with input from 29 physicians and 85 nurses in 12 hospitals, that brings fetal heart rate, contractions, blood pressure and maternal oxygen data into one timeline for labor and delivery teams. HCA Healthcare obstetricians and nurses annotated more than 1,000 fetal monitoring strips to train and validate its AI, and HCA Healthcare expected advanced features in 2026, pending FDA approval (Jun 2026).
- Models
- GE HealthCare, on AWS
MEDITECH ExpanseImplementation began 2022; enterprise waves from 2025
MEDITECH Expanse is the cloud-based EHR, with built-in AI capabilities, replacing MEDITECH Magic across HCA Healthcare by the end of 2028 in five enterprise waves. HCA Healthcare says the standardized data will let it scale innovation faster and used automation across implementation tasks (2026 Impact Report), and Mike Marks said in Mar 2026 that Expanse is a key part of the data foundation AI rests on.
- Users
- 72 hospitals in the U.S. and UK (Aug 2026)
Google Cloud data platformMay 2021
HCA Healthcare's data analytics platform, built with Google Cloud on the Healthcare API and BigQuery, supports clinical and operational tools and was planned to extend to supply chain, human resources and physical plant operations. Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that HCA Healthcare runs a data lakehouse on Google Cloud that captures, harmonizes and manages data as a product for AI models and analysts.
Vendors and partners
Google CloudMay 2021
Cloud, data lakehouse and the Gemini model behind Nurse Handoff · HCA Healthcare signed a multi-year strategic partnership in May 2021 and a generative AI collaboration in Aug 2023 covering nurse handoffs and emergency department documentation; Google Research helped build Nurse Handoff around Gemini (May 2026), and HCA Healthcare UK's Expanse EHR runs on Google Cloud Platform.
OpenAIJan 2026
ChatGPT for Healthcare and care orchestration agents · OpenAI listed HCA Healthcare on Jan 8, 2026 among the institutions rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare, and Michael Schlosser called the relationship a strategic partnership a few months old in May 2026.
Commure (including Augmedix)Oct 2024
Exclusive ambient AI documentation partner · Commure named HCA Healthcare among its backers in Oct 2024, and Michael Schlosser described a small HCA Healthcare investment in Commure in May 2026. Augmedix ran HCA Healthcare's 2023 emergency department pilot with about 75 physicians at four hospitals before Commure acquired it, and Commure's forward deployed engineers worked on feedback from Medical City Dallas physicians (Aug 2025).
GE HealthCareOct 2025
Co-developer of CareIntellect for Perinatal · GE HealthCare runs CareIntellect on AWS. HCA Healthcare supplies clinical data and frontline feedback and GE HealthCare supplies software and data science, under a nondisclosure agreement (Jun 2026).
MEDITECHExpanse implementation from 2022
EHR vendor (Expanse), the data foundation for HCA Healthcare's AI
PalantirFrom 2021
Technology partner of the Care Transformation and Innovation department · Michael Schlosser lists Palantir among the partners HCA Healthcare worked with to explore generative AI for administrative tasks; HCA Healthcare has not described a product in use.
Viz.ai
AI stroke detection · HCA Healthcare said at its Nov 2023 investor day that it had invested in Viz.ai technology to identify stroke patients earlier for intervention; no later update was found.
Leadership
AI, data and platform leaders
Executives
AI org map
Central physician-led digital and AI department under the Chief Clinical Officer, IT as a separate group reporting to the CEO, delivery through hospitals and shared services
HCA Healthcare places AI in Digital Transformation and Innovation, an enterprise function that reported directly to CEO Sam Hazen when Michael Schlosser was chief transformation officer (Jun 2026). Since Sep 1, 2026, Schlosser has been Chief Clinical Officer, reporting to Hazen, running the Clinical Services Group of quality, hospital chief medical officers, nursing and graduate medical education while continuing to lead DT&I, clinical informatics and the strategy for EHR, digital technologies and data platforms. The Information Technology Group under CIO Chad Wasserman, who has reported to Hazen since Feb 2024, supplies infrastructure, cloud and data engineering, and HCA Healthcare's Audit and Compliance Committee oversees AI risk for the board.
HCA Healthcare's AI work sits mainly in Digital Transformation and Innovation, a physician-led department of 755 clinicians, data scientists, AI engineers, agile leaders, intelligence analysts, developers, educators, digital product analysts and change management practitioners (Jun 2026), created in 2024 from the Care Transformation and Innovation team set up in 2021. HCA Healthcare's Information Technology Group, about 8,000 people in Feb 2026, supplies cloud, data engineering, automation and software, and HCA Healthcare has not said how many of them work on AI. HCA Healthcare's three innovation hub hospitals host engineers and data scientists who work beside caregivers (May 2026).
Reporting lines
Chief Executive Officer
Sam Hazen
Clinical Services Group
Michael Schlosser, EVP and Chief Clinical Officer
Quality, hospital chief medical officers, nursing, graduate medical education and hospital-based services (from Sep 1, 2026)
Digital Transformation and Innovation
755 staff (Jun 2026); Schlosser keeps it as Chief Clinical Officer, and HCA Healthcare is searching for a successor in his former role
Clinical AI
Yauheni Solad, VP, Clinical AI
Role created Jun 2025 to scale AI across hospitals; current title not confirmed
Clinical Informatics
Jake O'Shea, VP and Chief Health Information Officer
Sits within DT&I (Apr 2025); leads the MEDITECH Expanse rollout
Information Technology Group
Chad Wasserman, SVP and CIO
About 8,000 staff (Feb 2026); reports to the CEO since a Feb 2024 realignment
Operations
Jon Foster, EVP and COO
Hospital operating groups, Parallon and case management, where operational AI tools such as scheduling and denials work are used
Finance
Mike Marks, EVP and CFO
Explains the resiliency program, which counts AI and automation as a lever, to investors
Board Audit and Compliance Committee
Oversees risks from information technology, including AI, cybersecurity and data privacy (2026 proxy statement)
Michael Schlosser's Jun 2026 paper says DT&I reports directly to the CEO; the Aug 6, 2026 release says Schlosser, now Chief Clinical Officer, reports to Sam Hazen and continues to lead DT&I, and that searches for successors to his former role are under way, without saying where that role will report. Healthcare Dive reported in Feb 2024 that CIO Chad Wasserman and Schlosser would report directly to Hazen, and the 2025 Form 10-K lists the CIO on the risk management committee with the CEO and CFO. Foster's Jan 2023 portfolio included Parallon and case management; HCA Healthcare has not published whether that is still the case.
Where the AI workforce sits
Digital Transformation and Innovation (central product teams)
Estimate: the 755 DT&I staff (Jun 2026) are the only AI workforce count HCA Healthcare gives, and they include clinicians, educators and change managers as well as data scientists and AI engineers.
~70-85%Information Technology Group and shared services
Estimate: the Information Technology Group's data engineering, cloud and automation teams and Parallon's revenue cycle automation work; HCA Healthcare has not said how many of these staff work on AI.
~15-30%
Named people
Use cases
HCA Healthcare's Jun 2026 AI paper names six flagship initiatives (nurse handoffs, Timpani scheduling, ambient documentation, maternal-fetal care, inventory management and hospital throughput), executives add AI for payer denials and case management, and Michael Schlosser described care orchestration agents with OpenAI in May 2026. HCA Healthcare has not reported a business return credited to AI for any of them: Schlosser said the supply chain use cases carry a good financial return without giving a figure, and the $400 million 2026 resiliency savings target counts AI and automation as one of three capabilities without breaking them out.
| Use case | Area | Status | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Timpani staffing and scheduling Timpani builds nurse schedules that match skills and preferences with projected patient census, replacing self-scheduling that often left gaps filled by premium resources or contract labor, at more than 130 hospitals. | Nursing operations | In production | |
| Nurse Handoff Nurse Handoff drafts shift-change summaries from EHR data with Google's Gemini model for nurses to review together, in a 12-hospital beta in May 2026 with a wider rollout planned from mid-2026. | Nursing | Pilot | |
| Ambient clinical documentation Commure's ambient tool drafts physician notes from patient conversations in inpatient units, emergency departments and clinics at about 67 hospitals, about 200,000 notes a month, with 81% adoption in emergency departments (May 2026). | Physicians | In production | |
| AI-generated discharge summaries HCA Healthcare is piloting AI-drafted discharge summaries, which it reported as showing promising early results at the end of 2025. | Physicians | Pilot | |
| Payer denials and underpayments HCA Healthcare uses AI to summarize clinical records and draft appeal letters against payer denials, which Jon Foster said in Mar 2026 is largely mitigating the impact of rising denials. | Revenue cycle (Parallon) | In production | |
| CareIntellect for Perinatal CareIntellect for Perinatal, built with GE HealthCare, combines fetal monitoring, contraction and vital sign data for labor and delivery teams; HCA Healthcare clinicians annotated fetal monitoring strips to train its AI, and advanced features were expected in 2026 pending FDA approval. | Women's services | Pilot | |
| Intelligent inventory management HCA Healthcare is deploying models that optimize inventory management, spot contract noncompliance, analyze contracts and prices and monitor costs. | Supply chain | In production | |
| Case management and length of stay Sam Hazen said in Apr 2026 that HCA Healthcare is seeing its AI agenda at work in case management, with good outcomes on average length of stay, without giving a figure or separating AI from other throughput work. | Hospital operations | In production | |
| Agentic AI for discharge and throughput HCA Healthcare is exploring agentic AI that helps care teams work through discharge steps to free hospital capacity. | Hospital operations | Announced | |
| Care orchestration agents with OpenAI Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that HCA Healthcare and OpenAI are building a team of AI agents to orchestrate care delivery in a hospital, a project he called a moonshot, with a pilot possible later in 2026. | Hospital operations | Announced |
Adoption
HCA Healthcare spreads AI tool by tool through specific clinical groups, and has not published how many employees use a general assistant such as ChatGPT for Healthcare, which OpenAI said HCA Healthcare was rolling out in Jan 2026. Timpani reached more than 130 hospitals and 1,200 nursing departments by Jun 2026. Commure's ambient documentation reached 20 inpatient facilities, nine emergency departments and more than 400 ambulatory providers by Dec 31, 2025, and about 67 hospitals and 200,000 notes a month by May 2026, with 81% adoption in emergency departments. Nurse Handoff grew from an eight-hospital beta to 12 hospitals by May 2026, short of the about 100,000 nurses it targets. HCA Healthcare's executives describe adoption as the hard part: Mike Marks said in Nov 2025 that the company must be as good at implementation and change management as at building AI tools.
By the numbers
Rollout, first pilot to today
May 2019
HCA Healthcare said its SPOT sepsis alert algorithm had been used with 2.5 million patients and, with clinical interventions, helped save an estimated 8,000 lives over five years.
2021
HCA Healthcare set up its Care Transformation and Innovation department to explore AI with Google, Palantir, GE HealthCare and Augmedix.
May 2021
HCA Healthcare signed a multi-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud to build a data analytics platform on the Healthcare API and BigQuery.
Aug 2023
HCA Healthcare announced a generative AI collaboration with Google Cloud, after piloting Augmedix ambient documentation with about 75 emergency physicians at four hospitals and testing nurse handoffs at UCF Lake Nona Hospital.
Nov 2023
HCA Healthcare's investor day set annual incremental cost savings of $600 million to $800 million over five years and a plan for a global capability center in India starting with IT in 2024.
Early 2024
HCA Healthcare's digital team began building Nurse Handoff with Google Cloud.
2024
HCA Healthcare created Digital Transformation and Innovation to expand its digital and AI strategy and set up a Responsible AI Governance Council of cross-functional leaders.
Feb 2024
HCA Healthcare moved CIO Chad Wasserman and Michael Schlosser, then head of Care Transformation and Innovation, to report directly to CEO Sam Hazen.
Oct 2024
HCA Healthcare chose Commure as its exclusive partner to co-develop and deploy an ambient AI documentation platform across its network.
2025
HCA Healthcare launched waved enterprise rollouts of MEDITECH Expanse and expanded Timpani to 76 facilities.
Jun 2025
HCA Healthcare named Yauheni Solad to a new role leading clinical AI in Digital Transformation and Innovation.
Oct 2025
GE HealthCare launched CareIntellect for Perinatal, developed in collaboration with HCA Healthcare and run on AWS.
Nov 2025
Mike Marks said Nurse Handoff was live in eight hospitals with a broad rollout planned for 2026, and the AI scheduling tool was in just short of 100 hospitals.
Dec 2025
HCA Healthcare had ambient documentation in 20 inpatient facilities, nine emergency departments and with more than 400 ambulatory providers.
Jan 2026
OpenAI listed HCA Healthcare among the institutions rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare.
Apr 2026
HCA Healthcare was testing Commure's ambient AI with more than 1,400 physicians across more than 50 hospitals and three care settings.
May 2026
Michael Schlosser put ambient notes at about 67 hospitals, Nurse Handoff in a 12-hospital beta and care orchestration agents with OpenAI headed for a possible pilot later in 2026.
Jun 2026
Michael Schlosser reported Timpani at more than 130 hospitals and a 755-person Digital Transformation and Innovation department reporting to the CEO.
Sep 2026
Michael Schlosser became Chief Clinical Officer while keeping Digital Transformation and Innovation, joining AI and the clinical organization under one executive.
Economics & controls
Spend and ROI
Technology budget
HCA Healthcare does not disclose a technology budget. Controller Chris Wyatt said in Mar 2026 that about half of the $5 billion to $5.5 billion 2026 capital budget is routine or technology spending, including replacing the clinical information system with MEDITECH Expanse and funding the AI agenda. Mike Marks said in Apr 2026 that technological investments helped raise other operating expenses in the first quarter of 2026.
What AI itself costs
HCA Healthcare has not published what it spends on AI or on Digital Transformation and Innovation. Chris Wyatt said in May 2026 that 2026 is a year of investment in building the DT&I team, replacing the core clinical system and deploying new technology, and declined to say when the program turns from net investment to net return. Sam Hazen said in Sep 2026 that HCA Healthcare is absorbing most of the costs of its global capability center, new clinical system and AI agenda in its income statement, as it did in 2025, that the AI work is yielding results in some cases while HCA Healthcare remains a net investor, and that the global capability center should start to create value in 2027 and 2028.
Reported ROI
HCA Healthcare has reported no financial return credited to AI. HCA Healthcare's 2026 guidance includes about $400 million of incremental cost savings from its resiliency program, which spans revenue integrity, asset optimization and fixed and variable costs, with digital transformation through AI and automation named as one of three capabilities beside benchmarking and shared services (Jan 2026). When an analyst asked on the Jan 2026 call how much of the $400 million comes from AI initiatives, Mike Marks said the figure came from an assessment of the implementation status of the program's opportunities, without giving an AI share. HCA Healthcare executives reaffirmed the $400 million in Mar and May 2026 without attributing any part of it to AI. Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that the supply chain AI use cases carry a good financial return, without giving a figure. An earlier target, set at the Nov 2023 investor day, called for $600 million to $800 million of annual incremental cost savings over five years.
Productivity markers
HCA Healthcare reports task-level gains but has not converted them to cost. Timpani cut nurse scheduling from 8 to 15 hours a month to 2 to 3 hours per cycle, and departments using Timpani reported a 6% decline in turnover and less contract labor (Jun 2026). HCA Healthcare believes ambient documentation saves each provider more than an hour a day (Dec 2025), and HCA Healthcare's internal data showed about 8 minutes saved per history and physical note and 2.7 minutes per progress note, with timely note completion up from 69% to 87% (Commure, Apr 2026). Sam Hazen credited case management with better average length of stay in Apr 2026 without a figure or separating AI.
Headcount
HCA Healthcare had about 320,000 employees at Dec 31, 2025, including about 90,000 part-time and PRN staff, and about 100,000 nurses (Jun 2026), and has not tied AI to headcount reductions. HCA Healthcare cut a small percentage of corporate office and support positions in Sep 2026, citing policy shifts, more uninsured patients and rising costs, without mentioning AI. Mike Marks said in Nov 2023 that a global capability center in India would bring a significant cost reduction, and Sam Hazen and Mike Marks describe AI in nursing as support for caregivers.
Governance and risk
Responsible AI program
HCA Healthcare's Responsible AI program, managed by Michael Schlosser, provides guidance, standards and governance for AI use, with a Responsible AI Governance Council of cross-functional leaders (2025 proxy statement), and rests on five pillars covering safety and security, privacy, transparency, fairness and accountability (2026 Impact Report). HCA Healthcare keeps clinicians in the loop: physicians review, edit and sign ambient notes, and nurses edit Nurse Handoff drafts before passing them on.
Model monitoring
Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that HCA Healthcare keeps a model registry with model cards and is exploring AI-based monitoring of model performance over time. For generative AI tools such as Nurse Handoff, HCA Healthcare gives nurses a button to report errors, uses a separate language model to check for hallucinations and reviews a sample of outputs by hand.
Board oversight
HCA Healthcare's board assigns oversight of AI risk to its Audit and Compliance Committee, together with cybersecurity, disaster recovery and business continuity (2026 proxy statement). HCA Healthcare's Chief Information Security Officer reports at the committee's quarterly meetings, according to the 2025 Form 10-K.
Clinical risk and the FDA
Mike Marks said in Nov 2025 that clinical AI at HCA Healthcare will take longer because of its inherent risks, and that an AI algorithm to read fetal heart monitoring strips was at the FDA for review. HCA Healthcare's 2025 Form 10-K says some AI software can be regulated as a medical device and that HHS imposes transparency rules on predictive algorithms in certified health IT.
State AI laws
HCA Healthcare's 2025 Form 10-K cites California's AB 3030, which requires disclaimers on generative AI patient communications, Utah's Artificial Intelligence Policy Act, which requires disclosure in high-risk generative AI interactions, and the Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act's duties for deployers of high-risk systems, as rules that could restrict its AI use.
Patient data and consent
HCA Healthcare uses ambient documentation only with patients' consent. Nurse Handoff keeps patient data in a secure Google Cloud environment and cites the EHR source behind each generated statement (Jul 2025), and HCA Healthcare's 2021 Google Cloud agreement governs data access through Google's infrastructure plus HCA Healthcare's own security controls. OpenAI says ChatGPT for Healthcare runs under a business associate agreement and does not train on customer content (Jan 2026).
Recent signals
Oct 27, 2026
Sam Hazen said on the Q3 2026 call that HCA Healthcare's AI transformation initiatives aim to create a better work environment for caregivers, and Mike Marks called digital transformation a key enabler of the resiliency program.
Sep 21, 2026
HCA Healthcare's Capital and North Florida divisions, 34 hospitals, became the first of its 15 U.S. divisions to finish moving to MEDITECH Expanse, an EHR with built-in AI capabilities, with 72 HCA Healthcare hospitals live by Aug 2026.
Sep 15, 2026
Mike Marks said the next five years at HCA Healthcare will be an investment story driven by digital transformation, that a second phase of resiliency from 2027 will lean more on AI and automation, and that HCA Healthcare is behind payers in using AI on claims.
Sep 9, 2026
Sam Hazen called clinical AI the holy grail of HCA Healthcare's AI agenda, said ambient listening is rolling out to physicians with nursing to follow, and said HCA Healthcare is still a net investor in AI.
Aug 6, 2026
HCA Healthcare named Michael Schlosser Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer from Sep 1, 2026, succeeding Michael Cuffe, with Schlosser keeping Digital Transformation and Innovation and a search for his successor under way.
Jul 21, 2026
HCA Healthcare republished Michael Schlosser's peer-reviewed paper on scaling AI, reporting Timpani at more than 130 hospitals and a 755-person DT&I department reporting to the CEO.
May 26, 2026
Michael Schlosser said HCA Healthcare is a few months into a strategic partnership with OpenAI to build care orchestration agents, that Commure's ambient notes run in about 67 hospitals, and that Nurse Handoff, built around Google's Gemini model, is in a 12-hospital beta.
May 20, 2026
Chris Wyatt said 2026 is a year of investment for HCA Healthcare's digital program and declined to say when it turns to a net return, while reaffirming the $400 million resiliency target.
Apr 24, 2026
Sam Hazen said HCA Healthcare's AI agenda is being implemented, citing physician productivity from ambient listening, the Nurse Handoff rollout to more facilities and results in case management.
Mar 17, 2026
Chris Wyatt said about half of HCA Healthcare's 2026 capital budget is routine or technology spending, Expanse and the AI agenda included, and Jon Foster said AI and automation are largely mitigating rising payer denials.
Mar 13, 2026
HCA Healthcare's proxy statement put AI risk under the board's Audit and Compliance Committee and reported Timpani's 2025 expansion to 76 facilities and the deployment of Commure's ambient documentation.
Mar 10, 2026
Mike Marks said AI rests on data, called MEDITECH Expanse the biggest project in HCA Healthcare's history and said the AI and digital work is still in the early innings, and Erol Akdamar said Expanse will be complete by the end of 2028.
Feb 5, 2026
Chad Wasserman said on the Technovation podcast that operational stability comes before AI at HCA Healthcare, where he leads an IT organization of about 8,000 people.
Jan 27, 2026
Sam Hazen said HCA Healthcare is all in on the possibilities of AI, and Mike Marks guided to about $400 million of 2026 resiliency savings, with AI and automation among the capabilities behind it.
Jan 8, 2026
OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Healthcare and named HCA Healthcare among the institutions already rolling it out, alongside AdventHealth, Cedars-Sinai and others.
Quick answers
- How does HCA Healthcare deploy AI?
- HCA Healthcare deploys AI through Digital Transformation and Innovation, a 755-person physician-led department that builds tools with clinicians, such as Timpani nurse scheduling at more than 130 hospitals and a Nurse Handoff tool built on Google's Gemini model. HCA Healthcare also buys AI: Commure's ambient notes ran in about 67 hospitals in May 2026, and OpenAI named HCA Healthcare in Jan 2026 among the health systems rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare. HCA Healthcare has published no dollar return from AI.
- What does HCA Healthcare use AI for?
- HCA Healthcare's Jun 2026 AI paper names six flagship initiatives (nurse handoffs, Timpani scheduling, ambient documentation, maternal-fetal care, inventory management and hospital throughput), executives add AI for payer denials and case management, and Michael Schlosser described care orchestration agents with OpenAI in May 2026. HCA Healthcare has not reported a business return credited to AI for any of them: Schlosser said the supply chain use cases carry a good financial return without giving a figure, and the $400 million 2026 resiliency savings target counts AI and automation as one of three capabilities without breaking them out.
- Who leads AI at HCA Healthcare?
- AI at HCA Healthcare is led by Michael Schlosser (Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer; leads Digital Transformation and Innovation); Chad Wasserman (Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer); Yauheni Solad (Vice President, Clinical AI, Digital Transformation and Innovation). Ownership of AI on the org chart: Michael Schlosser, EVP and Chief Clinical Officer, reporting to the CEO.
- What AI platform does HCA Healthcare use?
- HCA Healthcare builds its own AI products, such as Timpani and Nurse Handoff, in a physician-led Digital Transformation and Innovation department, and buys others, such as Commure's ambient documentation, GE HealthCare's perinatal platform and OpenAI's ChatGPT for Healthcare.
- Which AI models does HCA Healthcare use?
- Nurse Handoff runs on Google's Gemini model on Google Cloud, HCA Healthcare is building care orchestration agents with OpenAI, and ambient notes come from Commure (May 2026).
- How many HCA employees use AI?
- Timpani AI scheduling ran at more than 130 HCA Healthcare hospitals and 1,200 nursing departments in Jun 2026, and Commure's ambient notes ran at about 67 hospitals, some 200,000 notes a month, in May 2026.
- How far has AI spread at HCA Healthcare?
- HCA Healthcare has reported no business return it credits to AI, for any use case or for the firm. The $400 million of 2026 savings in its guidance is a target for a resiliency program that names digital transformation with AI and automation as one of three capabilities, beside benchmarking and shared services, and CFO Mike Marks did not say how much comes from AI when an analyst asked in Jan 2026. The gains HCA Healthcare does report carry no cost figure: Timpani cut nurse scheduling time and its departments reported 6% lower turnover (Jun 2026), ambient documentation saves physicians time, and Michael Schlosser said in May 2026 that supply chain AI carries a good financial return without giving one. HCA Healthcare has not reported a company-wide AI rollout with a user count either: it counts its AI tools by hospital, with Timpani at more than 130 and Commure's ambient notes at about 67, and has not said how many of its roughly 320,000 employees use ChatGPT for Healthcare, which OpenAI listed it as rolling out in Jan 2026. HCA Healthcare is therefore at Experimenting; one return it credits to AI, or a reported count of employees using its AI tools under Michael Schlosser, would move it to Piloting.
Open questions
- Who will succeed Michael Schlosser as HCA Healthcare's chief transformation officer, and will that person report to Schlosser or to Sam Hazen?
- How many of HCA Healthcare's roughly 320,000 employees have access to ChatGPT for Healthcare, and how many use it each week?
- Does HCA Healthcare have a chief AI officer, and how do Mangesh Patil's and Yauheni Solad's current roles fit under Michael Schlosser?
- Which models power Commure's notes for HCA Healthcare, and where do Commure's service, ChatGPT for Healthcare and the U.S. Expanse instances run?
- What labor cost and contract labor savings has Timpani delivered across more than 130 hospitals, and how many hospitals ran it at the end of 2025, given the proxy's 76 facilities and Mike Marks's figure of just short of 100?
- How much of the $400 million 2026 resiliency savings comes from AI and automation, and did HCA Healthcare reach the target?
- What financial return do HCA Healthcare's supply chain AI use cases deliver, given Michael Schlosser's statement in May 2026 that they carry a good return?
- What revenue have AI-drafted denial appeals recovered for HCA Healthcare's Parallon revenue cycle?
- How far did Nurse Handoff spread after the 12-hospital beta and the wider rollout planned from mid-2026, and when will it reach all of HCA Healthcare's roughly 100,000 nurses?
- What business return do HCA Healthcare's ambient documentation and discharge summary tools deliver beyond the time savings it reports?
- Does the SPOT sepsis algorithm still run on MEDITECH Expanse, and what has it delivered since the May 2019 estimate?
- What does HCA Healthcare spend on AI and on Digital Transformation and Innovation, and how many people work in its global capability center?
Sources
HCA Healthcare
- HCA Healthcare Today: HCA Healthcare's strategic approach to scaling artificial intelligence, by Michael Schlosser (Jul 21, 2026)
- 2026 Impact Report: Integrating clinically led technology to enhance patient care (data as of Dec 31, 2025)
- Michael Schlosser named Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer (Aug 6, 2026)
- Chad Wasserman named Chief Information Officer (Feb 5, 2024)
- HCA Healthcare announces operational reorganization (Oct 25, 2022)
- HCA Healthcare collaborates with Google Cloud to bring generative AI to hospitals (Aug 29, 2023)
- HCA Healthcare partners with Google Cloud to accelerate digital transformation (May 26, 2021)
- HCA Healthcare using algorithm-driven technology to detect sepsis early (May 16, 2019)
- HCA Healthcare Today: Meet the Innovators, Chief Health Information Officer Jake O'Shea (Apr 9, 2025)
- HCA Healthcare newsroom: 10 headliners to watch in 2025, Mangesh Patil (Jan 2025)
Filings and investor materials
- HCA Healthcare 2025 Form 10-K
- HCA Healthcare 2026 proxy statement (Mar 13, 2026)
- HCA Healthcare 2025 preliminary proxy statement (Mar 2025)
- HCA Form 8-K on Sam Hazen's promotion to President and COO (Nov 2016)
- Management in Healthcare: HCA Healthcare's strategic approach to scaling artificial intelligence (Jun 2026)
- Q3 2026 earnings call transcript, The Motley Fool (Oct 27, 2026)
- Jefferies Healthcare Services and Technology Conference transcript, Mike Marks (Sep 15, 2026)
- Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference transcript, Sam Hazen (Sep 9, 2026)
- RBC Capital Markets Global Healthcare Conference transcript, Chris Wyatt (May 20, 2026)
- Q1 2026 earnings call transcript, The Motley Fool (Apr 24, 2026)
- KeyBanc Healthcare Forum transcript, Jon Foster and Chris Wyatt (Mar 17, 2026)
- Barclays Global Healthcare Conference transcript, Mike Marks and Erol Akdamar (Mar 10, 2026)
- Leerink Global Healthcare Conference transcript, Mike Marks and Erol Akdamar (Mar 10, 2026)
- TD Cowen Health Care Conference transcript, Mike Marks (Mar 3, 2026)
- Q4 2025 earnings call transcript (Jan 27, 2026)
- UBS Global Healthcare Conference transcript, Mike Marks (Nov 12, 2025)
- Q3 2025 earnings call transcript (Oct 24, 2025)
- Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference transcript, Mike Marks (Sep 4, 2025)
- 2023 Investor Day transcript (Nov 9, 2023)
Partners
- OpenAI: Introducing OpenAI for Healthcare (Jan 8, 2026)
- GE HealthCare launches CareIntellect for Perinatal (Oct 14, 2025)
- Google Cloud: How nurses are charting the future of AI at America's largest hospital network (Jul 29, 2025)
- Commure to partner with HCA Healthcare on ambient AI platform (Oct 23, 2024)
- Commure: Clinicians at Medical City Dallas and MEDITECH-integrated ambient AI (Aug 11, 2025)
- Commure: How health systems are evaluating ambient AI, lessons from HCA Healthcare (Apr 8, 2026)
News and interviews
- KFF, The Business of Health: AI at scale, does it deliver? with Michael Schlosser (May 26, 2026)
- Metis Strategy, Technovation: Chad Wasserman, HCA Healthcare (Feb 5, 2026)
- Intelligent CIO: HCA Healthcare rolls out cloud EHR across 34 US hospitals (Sep 21, 2026)
- WKRN: HCA Healthcare cuts corporate and support positions (Sep 2026)
- City AM: HCA Healthcare UK goes on the cloud with MEDITECH Expanse (Dec 18, 2025)
- Becker's Hospital Review: HCA appoints clinical AI leader (Jun 2025)
- Healthcare Dive: HCA shakes up C-suite reporting structure (Feb 14, 2024)
- Constellation Research: Mangesh Patil, Chief AI Officer, HCA Healthcare (undated)
- HealthTrust: Michael Schlosser named chief medical officer (2015)
- Trinity University: Jon Foster receives highest honor (May 2016)
Data confidence
- Confirmed
- Stated in a primary or reputable public source.
- Estimated
- Derived or approximated from public reporting.
- Unconfirmed
- Reported, but not yet corroborated.
HCA Healthcare profile · Enterprise AI diffusion report by Imagine · facts checked against their sources on Nov 1, 2026